


One Hell Of a Sting

by Bibi1311



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Deckerstar - Freeform, Fluff, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:21:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25281541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibi1311/pseuds/Bibi1311
Summary: Chloe, Lucifer, sharing the same place, what could go wrong ^^. Set somewhere in Season 1 but taking bits and pieces from the rest of the seasons.And Ella is awesome so she'll be here as well :).
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 125
Kudos: 246





	1. CHAPTER 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ManuHerz79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManuHerz79/gifts).



> Lucifer is aware he is vulnerable around Chloe and has accepted the situation but isn’t aware God put her in his path. Not sure if this part will ever happen by the way. Regarding Maze, she already lives with Chloe and Linda is aware of Lucifer’s secret (I told you there would be some elements from Season 2 XD). And well Ella is awesome, so she'll be here as well ;).
> 
> Alright now that the few elements have been set-up, on with the show ^^.

**CHAPTER 1**

_Los Angeles - Venice area - Chloe’s Condo - Around 07:30 am_

The day started rather normally for the sort-of family Chloe, Trixie and Maze had created in their new condo. Or as normal as it could be when you lived with an 8-year-old girl and a bounty hunter/demoness in the same house. Trixie was finally picked up by her dad to be brought to school and spend the week at his place, and Maze had left out of the blue for some contract on a trader she received up north in the San Francisco area. Chloe had no idea how long her flatmate would be gone for but she was - for once - glad to have some peace and quiet and be on her own for a couple of days, even if she was going to miss her daughter, and Maze a tiny bit. Despite her weird ways, the demoness brought some unexpected fun in their daily lives. 

She grabs her mug and exhales, content as she hears nothing but silence. She sits on the sofa for a bit, simply enjoying the stillness, before she gets up and heads for her room to find some casual clothes to wear as she was not due in the office until the beginning of the afternoon, or until the repair man showed up - which was between 7 am and noon.

As she comes out of the shower, she hears a loud noise coming from her kitchen. Without a second thought, she grabs her service gun from its hidden spot and her old LAPD issued shirt she slept in. She pauses before she enters the kitchen and tries to think of who could be there. Maze was gone for sure and Dan would have announced himself if he had to return so whoever came in was clearly an unwelcome guest. She slowly walks to her kitchen where the noise came from, not yet turning the corner, gun ready just in case. She decides to announce herself as she slowly appears.

“Whoever you are, you’ve got about five seconds to show yourself and surrender with your arms where I can see them, or I’ll shoot your ass out.” She expects the perk who came in to make a run for it and waits for the door to open and close but nothing happens. Instead, she smells baked eggs and olive oil. She relaxes as she doesn’t see anyone and slowly lowers her gun. “ _Maybe Trixie wanted to make some sort of surprise._ ” She thinks.

“Detective, I had no idea you looked so good in just a shirt. I mean I kinda knew but the reality exceeds the fiction by far.”

She jumps and redirects her gun towards the origin of the voice. She slowly lowers it, but not completely, as she realises Lucifer was the one who spoke, and broke in.

“For god’s sake, Lucifer!” She scolds him. “Where the Hell did you come from?” She wonders aloud, almost positive she hadn’t seen him when she checked the exact spot where he now stood. “Do you realise I could have shot you?”

“The wrong deity I think.” He jokes. “As for the shooting part, please don’t. The last time it happened was rather unpleasant and I have no wish to renew the experience.” She rolls her eyes, a flash of guilt as she remembers when she shot him, on his request. However, she chooses not to add more oil to the fire.

“How did you get in? Did you make a copy of my key?”

“Would “ _I’m the Devil_ ” suffice as an explanation?” As she doesn’t smile, he yields. “Fine.” He huffs. “Maze gave me an extra key in case of emergency. Not that I would need one anyway.”

“And this is an emergency how?” She requests. “And give me your key.” She holds out her hand.

“Well, first, it would have been a shame to miss this sight. I mean, you’ve clearly kept things up since Hot Tub High School. Can’t wait to see the rest later” He winks, eyes roaming her body, especially her naked legs. “But if you insist, here is your key.”

“Thank you.” She avoids eye contact and blushes slightly as she feels his heated gaze. But her annoyance with him is quick to take the lead. “What did you want anyway?” She adds, ignoring his latest comment on purpose. “Don’t you have an after-party at Lux or somewhere in LA with Brittanies waiting for you?” She completes, angrier and more bitter than she anticipated.

The Devil’s bravado falters for a moment as he hears her harsh tone before he fixes his usual grin again.

“Jealous, Detective?” He asks in order to hide whatever he felt at that moment. He takes a step closer to her and Chloe makes no move to back out. “Green isn’t your colour, Dear.” His voice drops. “Especially when all you need to do is ask.”

Chloe feels drawn to him for a second as her brain entertains the thought, that maybe, it wouldn’t be that bad if she bit the forbidden fruit once, or twice, or more. Right before her traitorous mind goes where it shouldn’t, she mentally slaps herself out of the gutter. She decides to go for sarcasm to hide her internal struggle.

“You wish.” 

“Actually…” He starts.

“Just don’t.” She interrupts him, half for her sake so he wouldn’t convince her, and a half for his sake because she was pissed at him right now. However, as she feels the ping of guilt when she sees his eyes, she can’t help but stress one more time the very low odds of them ever ending up together. “This,” she motions between her body and his “is never ever going to happen. So you should get used to it.” She completes. “ _Yeah, that was convincing, right?_ ” She tells herself. But Lucifer’s smile confirmed that apparently she was the only one who believed in what she said. 

But instead of calming her, his blatant faith that they are going to somehow, someday end up having sex together infuriates her even more. He seems to be oblivious to her struggle or ire and just grins at her, almost as if she were a kid who said she wouldn’t eat her Halloween candies but just does it in the end, because it’s inevitable. She lets a frustrated groan.

“You have to stop doing this.”

“What is _this_ exactly?” He plays dumb just for the sake of it.

“Your Luciferness, you coming in my house uninvited, breaking in, invading my privacy AND personal space, your offers to sleep with me, your disregard for any rules but your own.” He quirks his eyebrows as he sees the outline of a red stamp that says “Confidential” out of her bag. “What?” She snaps before she sees where he’s looking. “I had to stay home this morning and I thought I’d bring some cases with me and work while I wait for the repairman.”

“I’m not judging you.” He smirks. “I just find it a bit surprising you would bring a confidential case home when the LAPD rules strictly forbid it.” He pauses for a second, not sure if he should reply to her previous comment on his supposed invasive behaviour. “For the record, if my charisma is such a burden to you, then you have my word that from now on I will be a perfect little angel. No more jokes and no more expressing how much I appreciate your beauty and smarts.”

“Good.” She agrees. “And just because a file says “ _Confidential_ ”, it doesn’t mean I can’t take it home as long as I know it’s safe. The rule states it has to be transported in a secure way and stored as such as well.”

“It’s true your handbag and coffee table are a paradigm of safety.” He adds.

“‘Just…” She starts, short of a proper response. “shut up. You broke in, so don’t lecture me okay.” He doesn’t reply but the sparkle in his eyes conveys all he needs to. “Now since you’re here, you might as well help me with this new case I have.”

“Shoot.” He smiles. “I mean not literally.” 

She laughs, the tension now gone, and puts her gun on the counter as she realises she still had it in her hand. “Just grab a coffee and I’ll be back in a flash.” She states as she heads for her bedroom to get dressed. 

Once she’s back, they barely have the time to check the file before someone knocks on one of the windows. Chloe heads towards the windows and gestures to the technician to go around the house and use the back door to get in as the damage was closer to it. As soon as the guy enters the condo, Lucifer feels a chill run down his spine. He stares at the man, as he greets Chloe and walks towards the damaged wall. As Lucifer takes in the damage to the wall he reminisces about what happened a couple of days ago between Maze and Amenadiel as the dark-skinned archangel confronted her. The Devil turns to Chloe.

“This looks like a pretty big hole. What happened there?”

“Not sure.” She starts. “I came home to this a couple of days ago. Maze also had some cuts and bruises. I asked her about it but her reply was a blank check to pay for the repair and her avoiding me each time I talked about it. I tried over the phone as well but each time there’s a connection issue.”

“You should have seen the other guy.” He slightly smiles as he remembers Amenadiel’s cuts and bruises, AND the whining that followed.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He quickly says. “No one got hurt, or at least not too badly, that’s what matters, right?”

“I guess.” She finally agrees, fully aware Lucifer knew more than he let on but knowing better than to push for more information - for now. Ever since Lucifer and Maze came into her life, she always knew they had some sort of bond, but she didn’t know to which extent and she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to find out.

The technician interrupts them.

“I’m gonna need more materials than I brought. When you called for a repair, I had no idea the hole would be this big. The picture didn’t do it justice at all.” He jokes. He looks at Chloe then straight at Lucifer. “Whatever - or whoever - landed there must have been in pretty bad shape.” His smile turns predatory as he looks at Lucifer again. “When would you be able for me to come back?” He looks at Chloe, his face one of the most honest men ever. “No need to be present, just leave me the keys. If it’s OK with you of course.”

“As soon as you can,” Chloe says. “I’ll be present.”

“Very well, I’ll be in touch then Miss Decker.” He gathers his things and heads for the back door. “Lucifer, it was nice finally meeting you in person.” He adds in a whisper before he closes the door.

The comment from the repair guy surprises him and the Devil stares at the door for a moment, not sure if he heard correctly. Chloe pulls him out of his doubts and she addresses him from the other side of the house, case file in hand.

“You coming or what?”

“How did he know my name?” He answers, completely out of it.

“What do you mean?”

He walks over to Chloe. “How did he know my name?” He repeats. “He said it was nice to finally meet me in person when he left. How does he know my name?” His gut feeling not going away despite the three times he acknowledged the fact the repairman knew his name.

“He did? I didn’t hear anything.” Lucifer remains silent. “But he probably knew you from reputation or Lux, or an after-party.”

“What is it with you and after-parties, Detective? Is it your way to tell me you want to be invited to the next one?” Chloe rolls her eyes. “Just kidding, sort of. But anyway, just be careful around him.”

“You got your devilish Spidey Sense tingling?” She jokes.

“Haha, very funny, Detective. Just promise me you’ll be careful. I don’t trust the guy. Something’s off with him.”

“He’s just a repairman, Lucifer.” She smirks as she sees him still stuck on the guy. “No need to get your knickers in a twist.” She adds, giving him a taste of his own medicine. What she doesn’t expect though, is for Lucifer to get annoyed by her comment.

“Well if you’re done mocking me for my concern over YOUR safety maybe, we can get to work?” 

“Fine, I’ll stop.” She gives in. “I don’t need to stay home anymore so meet you at the station in an hour?”

“Not sure.”

“Come on, Lucifer, I was joking, okay. No need to get all sulky about it.”

“I have things to do this morning.” He adds. “Maybe I’ll meet you later.”

“Whatever.” She finishes the conversation. If he was going to be like this about this, then two could play this game and she wouldn’t be the one to apologize for something he did every day to her and others. And so they parted ways.

_Los Angeles - Toy District - LAPD Precinct - About an hour later_

As Choe walks back to her desk, she is surprised to find Lucifer in her chair, paper bag in hand. “Bagel, Detective?” He pushes the bag forward. “I thought since we didn’t get a chance to get breakfast at your place, I would bring it over.”

Chloe smiles and accepts his apology - or peace offering - fully aware it would be about as much as she’d get from him. “How did you get here so fast? And how did you get the time to stop for these?” She asks as she bites into a bagel.

“Are you sure you wish to know?” His tone is playful and she rolls her eyes, happy to be back on more stable ground with her partner, expecting a reference to his devilish nature, or his blatant disrespect of the speed limit. “Just kidding. I had it delivered from the shop at the corner of the street. I hear they make the best bagels in the area.” He smiles. “Although I have to say that you drive like…”

“Just get out of my chair.” She stops him before he could once again criticize her driving. And for once the Devil complies without a word and takes his seat opposite her.

A couple of minutes later, as they both dive into the new case at hand, a loud thud interrupts them as a huge file is dropped on the desk. Chloe stops what she was doing and holds back her eye-roll. She really disliked this new Lieutenant. He was assigned to his new duty only a couple of days ago. He was pesky and just because he was a big shot a dozen years ago, he had become a condescending asshat with everyone he worked with. Lucifer, however, had no such barrier. He simply looked at the tiny man.

“Well, that was rude!”

“And you are?”

“Lucifer, Morningstar.” He holds out his hand. “LAPD consultant.” Before Chloe can tell him to shut up, Lucifer continues. “Given I have never seen your face before, you must be the new Lieutenant that arrived recently. I’ve heard a lot about you, but I haven’t seen much of you.”

“Lieutenant Dickson.” He refuses to shake the Devil’s hand and makes himself as tall as possible for a 5.2 feet man. “I’ve also heard a lot about you.” He smiles, his teeth pearly white. “I don’t know what you did to my predecessor, but whatever deal you had with Olivia is over until you can prove you’re useful to this department.”

Lucifer isn’t sure he heard properly. “So what you’re saying is that I’m fired?”

“Until further notice, yes. You are no longer welcome on the premises until I have reviewed your file and official application.”

“Sir,” Chloe tries to intervene “if I may.” He nods. “Lucifer has been an asset to this department. Our closing rate is one of the highest in the precinct.” She pauses and gauges his reaction. “Could you please reconsider?”

“Very well, Decker.” He puts his hand on her desk. “You have one week to convince me of his use and solve this case.” He opens the file. “Fail and you’ll get assigned a new partner.”

“Thank you, Sir.” She forces herself to say.

Once the lieutenant is out of earshot, Lucifer scoots closer to Chloe.

“Why I didn’t know you cared, Detective.” 

“Took me by surprise as well.” She starts. “But what can I say, despite being weird, annoying, and borderline most of your time as well as…”

“I get it. Please do get to the good parts.”

“You always have my back and we make a good team.”

“So what you’re saying is that despite me being awesome, you like me?”

“ALL I’m saying is that you’re a good partner.” She doesn’t miss his smirk. “Now shut up and help me save your job.”

“Of course, partner!” He grabs one of the coffee cups he brought along with the bagel bag. “What do you have about this new case?”

“From Ella’s first comments, our victim is a caucasian male, 35 years old and CEO of a tech company named Initiatech.”

“Let me guess, the wife did it?”

“Actually no.” She smiles. “He doesn’t have any known relationship, never married and currently one of the most eligible bachelors in the wide LA area.”

“Good for him.”

“You don’t know him? For real?”

“Why should I know him?”

“Don’t you check out your competition from time to time?”

He chuckles. “That’s cute, Detective, but you should know by now that I am the competition and way out of any most eligible bachelor’s league.” He takes the file from her hand to check his picture. “And we are nothing alike.” He finishes. 

Chloe grabs the paper again. “I wouldn’t be so sure about this. Both of you are single and consider being in a relationship a heresy, sitting on a huge pile of money from unknown origin, very mindful of your image, designer clothes, women AND men magnet.” She pauses for effect. “It sounds pretty similar if you ask me.”

“How lucky that no one asked you then.” He smirks. “Besides all I heard is that you think I’m rich, smart and sexy. And for your information, I do not shy away from relationships, I just prefer to avoid complications which come with it.”

She laughs. Of course, that’s all he would take from what she said. “Anyway, this is a _very_ high profile case so we need to be extremely careful with how we approach all this. For all I know, the press is probably circling his tower by now like a bunch of vultures.” She opens her drawer to grab her gun’s charger. “So no naked you or stunt like asking who killed him in front of everyone.” He opens his mouth but doesn’t get a chance to say anything. “I mean it, Lucifer, the Lieutenant has you on his radar and awaits the slightest slipup from you to get rid of you.”

“Alright.” He raises his arms in surrender. “You have my word that I will do everything by the book. I am yours to command.”

“Thank you.” 

“So what more do you have to tell me about this guy?”

“It’s all in the file. Why don’t you read it on the way over?”

“It’s boring.” He opens the file. “And you tell it so much better.”

She rolls her eyes but goes on anyway. “His name is Jeff Gordon, 35 as I said before, and CEO of one of the biggest - if not the biggest - high-tech company in the last 5 years. He was the owner of some of the most popular apps and devices associated with them on the market and his estimated worth is about 1 trillion a year. He employs around 120 000 people worldwide between the R&D, plants in Asia to build his components, his shops around in the US and Europe to sell his creations.” She gives Lucifer time to take in all the information. “He was found dead by his associate today around 6 am before the cleaning crew starts their day in the main office. Footage shows him enter his office on Saturday a bit after lunch but none show him leave in-between. His last employee left their desks around 8 pm on Saturday. So Ella concluded the murder happened between Saturday 8 pm and Monday at 6 am as the employee was the last to check out and none of them were due back in the office over the weekend. The first analysis of the ME also confirms this fact. She will get back to us once she has a more precise TOD. COD is also pending the ME’s feedback.”

“Okay.”

“Now you see why this is a very high-profile case?” Lucifer nods. “We need to get there and gather all of their security tapes we can find, and interrogate his associate, who has now been declared CEO. And as you can imagine, he is now also our prime suspect.”

“Well then, let’s go catch ourselves a killer, Detective. And prove this tiny and impudent man how wrong he is and how useful I am.”

She laughs and follows him.

_Los Angeles - City West Area - Initiatech main office_

It takes them about twenty minutes to reach the highest tower in Los Angeles. As Chloe parks in front of the building and shows her badge to get across the police line, she freezes as she sees a bunch of voice recorders shoved her way, cameras and questions thrown at her by the herd of reporters at the bottom of the glass tower. She feels her anger and panic rise as she recalls some unpleasant encounters with some journalists during her fame days, or when she was a kid and couldn’t even go to school without having at least two paparazzi taking pictures of her. As she sinks deeper into her own fears, she feels a strong hand on her shoulder. She lets herself be guided by Lucifer to a safer zone. As the glass doors finally close on her and mute the noise and flashes from the outside, she slowly comes back to the moment and feels like herself again. The first thing she sees is Lucifer’s gaze, full of concern for her after the incident. He releases his grip but his hand remains on her shoulder, and Chloe doesn’t seem to mind his touch. She debates inwardly whether she should give him an explanation for what happened, and finally decides to give him the short version of the story.

“Thank you.” She starts, not without difficulties. “I expected journalists to be here, but I wasn’t ready for them to attack me with questions and all the way they did.” She pauses. “I guess it caught me by surprise and it brought back some very unpleasant memories from my time as a young actress, or B-list actress’s daughter. I thought this was all behind me, but…”

“There’s no need to apologise for anything, Detective.” He quickly replies before panic can take hold of Chloe once again. “You seemed distressed and I did what any partner would have done.” Lucifer pauses to give her time to reply to him, but the detective simply nods “But if you ever want to talk about it - later on - I’m all yours. Although I have never been one to rebuke the attention of others - as you know - I know it can be difficult when unsolicited, especially when it comes from such dung beetles.”

She smiles at him, glad he chose to not push the topic any further but also didn’t close the topic definitely. 

After a while, Lucifer continues. “If you’re ready, what do you say we go talk to our wanna-be murderer? I’m pretty sure the lovely hostess behind the desk would be more than happy to let us in.” 

They both head for the front desk. Before they reach it, Lucifer stops Chloe. “One last thing, Detective.”

“Yes?”

“Since I gave my word to play by the book and be a Dan.”

“Yes?”

“Am I allowed to charm any information out of the new CEO?”

“Maybe, if you play nice…” She teases him.

“I can play very nice when properly motivated, Detective.” He banters, happy at her playful tone.

Then they close the distance between them and the front desk. As soon as the receptionist - Mary - sees Lucifer her face changes and her pupils open to their fullest.

“Hi.” Her tone is thick with want. “How can I help you, Mister?”

“Morningstar, Lucifer.” He extends his hand and Mary grips it. “We’re here to see your new boss, Morgan Morris, and we were wondering if you could buzz us in and keep our little visit between us.”

“I could, but what do I get in return?” She boldly asks.

“How about I leave you my number and you can call me later on so we can discuss your reward for helping us bring justice to this world?” He hands her his card and Mary winks in return. “Good, then we have a deal. Now do you mind letting us in?”

“I’ll call you later.” She shows the door. “Morris is on the 65th floor. Door code is 3478B21.” She pulls out a card from under the desk. “I made you a guest card, just in case you want to access the supply closet later on, and I attached my number at the back, you know for safekeeping and all.”

“Thank you very much, Mary.”

They both head for the main entrance, Lucifer shows his guest card to the security guard there and they’re let through without issue. Once they’re out of earshot, Chloe stops him.

“What was all this about?”

“Jealous again? That will be twice for today.”

“No!” Her rebuttal is too quick to be fully honest. “But I thought we said no mojo.”

“Trust me Detective. If I had used my _mojo_ as you call it, you would have known.” He puffs his chest. “I can’t help it if I have a natural allure that draws out people’s desires. Part of being the Devil I guess.” He looks at the number the woman gave him. “And there’s no harm in having a bit of fun after we’re done with this case. This lady seemed lovely, and I did say we would discuss her rewards later and I always keep my…” He notices her discomfort as the elevator doors open. “Are you alright, Detective?”

“Yes.” She enters the elevator. “Let’s go and get this over with.” Lucifer is a bit lost but follows suit, still worried for Chloe. The blonde woman does her best to avoid his gaze. She had shared enough for one day, and this was something she wasn’t willing to talk about just yet.

Lucifer kept an eye on Chloe as he realises her discomfort somehow worsens the more they stay in the closed space. He realises he never noticed this before, but then Chloe mostly took the stairs whenever possible under the excuse that it was healthier. Now he began to understand why, or at least partly. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

She doesn’t get a chance to deny or confirm as the elevator comes to a sudden halt and shakes. She freezes, her brain now in survival mode as panic rises once again. She usually could handle this kind of situation but her previous encounter weakened her and this time she couldn’t bottle her fear down. Lucifer doesn’t miss the look in her eyes, he had seen too many times in Hell when he duplicated a traumatic event in his cells. He locks his eyes on her and focuses her attention on him.

“It’s going to be over before you even know it. You know I have had this very situation in some of the hells I…”

“What are you getting at, Lucifer?” She’s clearly pissed and scared.

“Nothing.” He keeps eye contact with her. “I was just trying to distract you until the elevator started again.” 

“So you think boring me with a story of someone who dies and for whom you created this situation in a hell loop would do the trick how exactly?”

“Well I have to admit I’m working with both hands tied behind my back here.” Lucifer grins, as she raises her eyebrows. “I have many other ways to keep you distracted and make sure your brain stops thinking for a while, but none would fit the deal we stroke.” He can see a very tiny smile slip through. “If we ever get the chance I know a couple of things we could do in an elevator to make you forget about your previous unpleasant time in an elevator ride.” He winks.

Just like that the elevator shakes again and restarts. She jumps at the sudden movements and finds herself pressed against him. The machine reaches it’s cruise speed again but she makes no move to step away from Lucifer. The Devil lets his hands rest on her hips but doesn’t push any further than what she allowed him to, his promise to remain a perfect little angel still ringing in his head. The view of the 65th floor brings them both back to Earth and Chloe almost leaps out of the elevator. 

She finally takes a deep breath and leans against the wall near the doors and closes her eyes until her mind and breathing are stable again. Lucifer presses against the wall beside her.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“It’s silly, really.”

“What happened?” He pries a bit. He could feel she wanted to talk about it but wasn’t very sure. Maybe his time with Doctor Martin finally paid off. Or maybe it was simply because it was her and he just wanted to make sure she was alright.

“Back when I was a kid, I got stuck in an elevator for hours. I was about six or seven and I had annoyed my mom and dad into letting me get the bread at the corner of our street. It was about fifty meters away from our place. But then the elevator broke down and fell for two floors before it stopped mid-course. I screamed until my parents heard me and called 911. It took me years to even be able to step into an elevator at all.” Her body shakes at the memory. “Now I avoid it as much as possible, but I still get nervous, especially for high buildings.” Her eyes drilled a hole through the immaculate linoleum.

“No need to be ashamed about any of it. You were just a kid at the time. And from what I’ve seen you turned out just fine.” He winks. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thank you.” She walks towards the entrance of the open space on the other end of the corridor and Lucifer follows.

A loud voice is heard behind them and they turn around to see a guard shaped like a gorilla walk fast towards them. The Devil steps in front of Chloe to shield her from anything that could happen.

“Who the fuck do you think you are and how did you get up here?” 

Chloe takes the lead to avoid any further incidents between Lucifer and the security guard. She shows her badge to the gorilla.

“Officer Decker, from the LAPD. We’re here about your boss’s death. We need to see Mr Morris.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“We don’t need an appointment.” Chloe counters.

“Then I’m sorry but you’ll need to…”

“Come on, Mister Muscle man, I’m sure we can work something out.” Lucifer comes closer to the guard. The muscled man immediately softens but doesn’t yet yield. “You’re a complicated one, I didn’t see this one coming, I have to give you that.”

“I…”

“Go on, tell me what you want. What you really really want.”

Just as he’s about to give in, a female voice breaks the trance. “Richie, stand down, it’s OK.” As a result, Richie steps aside to reveal a lean woman, black hair. She wears a very expensive skirt and shirt, with a matching jacket, her confidence almost palpable. “There’s no need to get aggressive. I’m sure Officer Decker here is just doing her job.” She extends her hand. “I’m Morgan Morris. I heard you wanted to see me?”

“Yes, Miss Morris.” Chloe seems to be hesitating. “I’m sorry, I thought you were…” 

“A man?” She finishes. “I know, I get that a lot. My parents always wanted to have a boy and I have a lot of power and money. You’re not the first one to make that mistake, and you won’t be the last, trust me.”

“I’m here about your associate’s death. We don’t have…”

“Not here.” She gestures towards the open space. “I wouldn’t want my team to be freaked out by your presence. We’re at the brink of a major new product launch and I don’t want them distracted by anything other than work. They have been distressed enough when they learnt Jeff got hospitalised for a peanut allergy.”

“Is this what you told them?”

“Follow me, please.” She simply says.

They all enter a small meeting room on the other side of the corridor. Morgan immediately unplugs the recording device and sits down. 

“Please have a sit, Detectives.”

“Miss Morris, I’ll skip the small talk.” 

“I understand, time is money, so get to the point.”

“Why did you tell your employees your associate is hospitalised? Don’t you think they will find out about his death? The outside is packed with reporters.”

“I know they will but, as I said, I can’t have them freak out about something like this while we’re about to launch our major app and device.”

Chloe can’t hide her disapproval at the woman’s strategy. “What were you doing between Saturday night after 8 pm and Monday morning before you found your associate dead? When did you last see him?”

“I was here, at the office. A company like this one doesn’t run itself. And a 9-to-5-Monday-to-Friday agenda just doesn’ cut it .”

“When’s the last time you talked to Gordon?”

“We talked briefly around 10 pm on Saturday, but the conversation, as always, turned short.”

“Any reasons why?”

“Because he was his usual assy self, I guess.”

“So you two disagreed, I take it?”

Morgan suddenly stops. “I think this is where we end this informal talk and where I call Miss Richards from Richards and Wheelers, as well as an official warrant for any extra video surveillance you might request. Once I have an official invitation from your department to visit you downtown, then we can continue this conversation.”

Chloe looks at Lucifer but he remains still on his chair, fingers crossed on his left leg. She nudges him. “What?” He mouths as she motions to Morgan Morris.

“Seriously?” She complains when he doesn’t move. “Do your thing!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so sooner, Detective. It would have saved us a lot of time.”

As Chloe is about to object, Lucifer locks his gaze with the suspect and lowers his voice of an octave. Chloe can feel the vibrations and the change in the atmosphere of the room.

“So, Morgan. What is it you don’t want us to find out, then?” His smile grows wider. “Why did you kill your associate? Was he slowly squeezing you out of the partnership? Did he take the last pudding in the fridge? It can tick off some people pretty bad.” He adds as he recalls his encounter with Dan by the pool during their last case.

“I hated his guts. I mean we started this company and suddenly he thought he could be the only one to decide its future because he owned 51 % of it. He was going to destroy everything we built with his archaic management and vision of a business.”

“How so?”

“People are changing, the industry is changing and he refused to admit it. I tried to convince him to add an environmental part to our company and reduce our carbon footprint as much as we could over the coming years. But no he thought these were only Millenials considerations and because he owned 51 %, he had the final say. But I was this close to legally getting rid of him and getting his shares and finally anchoring this company in a better, more responsible future. We would have been the pioneer of all high-tech companies.”

“So you killed him? Greed and ego can be tough for you Humans.”

“Why would I kill him when I was so close to ripping him off his shares? All I had left to do was to use the board against him so they’d make him stand down and sell me his shares. But with him dead, all my plan is ruined and his shares will be divided among the board members, as per our contract.”

Then just like that, the trance is broken and Morgan comes back. “What just happened?” She requests.

“You still want to get your lawyer here, Miss Morgan?” Chloe question. “It’d really be a shame for your stock options and company’s future if any of this leaked to the press, don’t you think?”

“What do you want?”

“To do our job and find out who killed your associate.”

“I have no idea. When you get this powerful, a lot of people hate you or want to hold you responsible for whatever is wrong in your life.”

“Anything that could help us?”

“I discovered a couple of weeks back, after he excused himself from our meetings for private reasons on several occasions, that he was working with a group of our developers who live at our private campus. They develop some sort of shadow technology for a private buyer. When I confronted him about it, he simply sent me away because it was none of my business. But as an associate, I wanted to make sure his private actions wouldn’t damage our public image so I had one of my tech guys infiltrate his little activist group.”

“Sounds like a good start.” Chloe says. “How do we talk to them?”

“You can’t. Otherwise, they’ll know.” She pauses. “But I could introduce you to my guy so he gets you into the circle.”

“I don’t know anything about computer science.”

“No kidding.” Morris ironises.

She ignores his reply. “But I know someone who is a genius when it comes to this. We’ll be in touch with the details, Miss Morris.”

Once they leave the conference room, Lucifer smiles. “ A sting operation. Lovely idea Detective.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it folks.  
> Let me know what you thought :). Shall I go on with this ;)?  
> Thanks!


	2. CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

As Lucifer and Chloe drove back from the crime scene - after this very interesting turn of events - they both remained silent. The devil was still very much surprised after all these revelations. Between the handyman in the morning, and the new information about Chloe, the day had been quite eventful, and wasn’t done yet. The Detective on her side was also lost in her world, but not for the same reason. Part of her was focused on the road and the heavy traffic in Los Angeles at the moment, while her other half was set on figuring out how to sell the whole sting idea to her new boss. The more she thought about it, the more she realised having Lucifer around when she explained her plan to the Lieutenant was a bad idea. Now all she had to do was break the news to her partner and hope he wouldn’t take it the wrong way. If her short experience with him taught her anything, it was that despite his bravado, he had a hard time dealing with rejection or exclusion in general. She finally parked her car and turned off the ignition. This effectively pulled Lucifer out of his thoughts.

“This isn’t the station,” he states. “I thought we were going back to the precinct to talk to the Lieutenant.”

“I will talk to him a bit later on.” She searches his eyes to convey what she didn’t say but he avoids her on purpose. “I think it’s best if I talk to him on my own and if you could stay away from the station for a couple of days.”

“I see.” He simply replies, surprised and a little hurt because her current words were in complete opposition to her actions this morning when she argued with their new boss. “I wouldn’t want to impose and make things worse.” He opens the car door. “Thank you for the ride home, Detective.” His voice is neutral in an attempt to hide whatever was happening in his mind.

Chloe grabs his arm before he can go. She feels the need to explain her decision so they wouldn’t part this way. “It’s not that I don’t want you there, Lucifer.” She quickly says. “It’s just…” She pauses and locks her eyes with his. “It’s just the Lieutenant isn’t a big fan of yours and given the importance of this future operation, I thought it would be easier to ask him for the permission to start the undercover operation, and even though I think you are a very important asset to our team, I just want to make sure all of the chances are on my side.” She smiles at him and his features soften as he understands what she meant.

“Very well, Detective.” He reluctantly agrees. “Although I don’t understand why this imp is so set on getting rid of me, I get your point.” He smirks. “I’ll forgive you, if you come by later and fill me in on the details, AND bring some burgers along. I think it’s time we have a do-over, don’t you agree?”

Chloe smiles, surprised, as she recalls their ruined meal. They were supposed to meet one evening after they closed a case to have a celebratory burger in a nearby bar, but a fight exploded under the pretence that Lucifer hit on one of the regulars’ girlfriend, and put a premature end to their near-date as Doctor Martin called it. Both hadn’t mentioned the moment since it happened months ago, which is why it was unexpected to her that Lucifer decided to bring it up now, but at the same time, he was Lucifer, so anything could happen when he was involved.

“I’ll stop by later to fill you in, and I’ll bring burgers.” She winks and Lucifer closes the door and heads for Lux.

After some intense negotiations, Chloe finally managed to get her boss’ approval to build the undercover operation. He was rather open to it until she mentioned Lucifer’s name. It took all of her restraints and self-control to not just tell this idiot to go to Hell, but in the end, she managed to convince him that if they caught the killer this way, he would be the one to get the glory, hence helping his career to move forward and scratch his ego in the process. After he agreed to have Lucifer on-board, the rest was easy and he let her choose her surveillance and tactical team, including a brunette forensic scientist. She left his office, happy with herself and headed for Ella’s lab, but she was MIA. She stumbled on Dan on her way back to her office.

“Hey Dan, do you know where Ella is?”

“Hey. Yeah. She left about ten minutes ago to get to a body discovered in Joshua Tree Park. She should be back in a couple of hours I think.”

“Okay, thanks.” She grabs her bag. “Can you please tell her to meet me at Lucifer’s around 5:30? Cell reception there is really bad.”

“Sure.” He looks at her, curious. “Is everything alright? Why do you want her to meet you there? Can’t you guys meet here?”

“We need to discuss a case.” She simply offers not willing to share anything with Dan yet. “I need to go now, but I’ll see you around.”

“Okay.” He says aware Chloe wasn’t going to share anything else.

“Bye.” She replies as she heads out. She had a couple of stops to make to prepare the operation and her team before she got to Lux, so by the time she was done, she should arrive there just in time.

_ Los Angeles - Lux - Short before 5:30 pm _

By now Chloe was well known at Lux, and the parking valet - as well as the bouncer - let her through directly. She navigated easily through the packed up club. Even during the early hours, it was already full of people who were simply here to enjoy a drink and have fun. She reached the elevator to access Lucifer’s penthouse and saw two bimbos waiting in front of it. Chloe feels an odd feeling in her chest as she sees these two women pinning to go up and meet Lucifer. She approaches them silently and pretends like she didn’t see them. 

“OMG! Isn’t that the owner I just saw step into the VIP area?” She says, using her best bimbo voice.

As expected, both girls run back towards the VIP area, giggling. Chloe smiles at her easy victory, then she calls the elevator and dials in the code to get to the penthouse. She quickly gets out of the elevator as she reaches the last floor. She looks for Lucifer around but can’t find him anywhere from where she stands. She walks in further until she hears his voice coming from the balcony. She drops her jacket and bag on the nearest stool and heads towards the voice. As she is about to step out, he steps in, bumping into her in the process.

“See I told you it had to be in the Jacuzz...” He stops to look at the obstacle he walked into and his face lightens automatically as he sees Chloe’s face. “Detective!” His tone is instantly different. “I didn’t expect you so soon. You usually stay much longer at the precinct, especially when your offspring is with the Douche.”

Chloe felt a warm feeling that he would notice such things, but of course, he would. Then she finally registers his state of clothing - or rather lack of - and she clears her throat while doing her best to not stare at his chest and very well-cut and short swim trunks.

“Yeah. I had a few errands to run, but I thought I could finish early so we could go over the details of our upcoming operation.” She looks away, blushing, as she realises how complicated it is for her not to stare, and Lucifer makes no move to make it easier on her. “But I was clearly too early and if it’s an inconvenient time, we can always meet tomorrow morning…” She stars.

“Nonsense, Detective!” He instantly replies. “Rob here was just looking for his sunglasses he forgot the other night and I thought we could have a bit of fun. After all, you’re the one who told me to go on about my day while you talked to the Lieutenant, so I did, and Rob just happened to be around at the right time.”

“Lucifer I told you not to come to the precinct with me, not to invite your conquest of the previous night over again.” She replies, angered both by the presence of Rob and by the fact that he could misunderstand her to such lengths. “But you know why, it doesn’t matter, it’s your life and you do what and who you want whenever you want to. Just make sure to be at the precinct tomorrow morning so we can work on this case.”

“Come on Detective, you should know by now that you’ll always come first.” He replies without really thinking, not even aware of the words he spoke before he hears them himself. “What I had planned with Rob is nothing that can’t be postponed, and he was just about to leave, right?”

“Right.” Comes a rather disappointed voice from the jacuzzi on the other side of the balcony.

Chloe turns around and looks towards the couch of the living room, mainly to hide that green feeling she got more and more around him these days, but also to hide the blush from her cheeks as she can’t help but imagine what would have happened in that jacuzzi if she had come minutes later, or what she might have stumbled on. “I’ll wait for you in the living room.” She simply says as they were both still half in and halt out of the penthouse.

After a couple of minutes, Rob had finally gathered his stuff and left the penthouse. Lucifer walks towards Chloe, glass in hand. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, I’m fine.” She answers, her eyes staring right in front of her, as she knows he still isn’t fully dressed, but also not trusting herself to not stare. “Maybe you should get dressed before we start to work?”

“Indeed.” He moves to stand in front of her. “Unless you want to have a dip in the bubbles before we start to talk about the case?”

“I’ll be alright, thank you.”

“Very well.” He agrees. “I’ll be out in a minute.” He ends as he heads for his bedroom.

Just as he disappeared a voice comes from the elevator. “Wow, this place is so awesome!”

“Hey, Ella. Glad you could make it.”

“Hey Girl,” Ella replies. “I was so happy you gave me an excuse to get out of the precinct. The Lieutenant planned another one of his  _ meetings _ .” She laughs. “Where’s Lucifer?”

“Getting dressed,” Chloe answers, without thinking. Then she realises what she just said and tries to correct herself. “I mean, he was in the jacuzzi before you arrived and…” She stops, looking for another way to explain the situation as Ella’s smirk widens. “It’s not what it sounds like and what you think. One of his friends was here and…” She gives up as she admits she’s digging her own grave as Ella keeps on smiling. “Never mind.”

“Well good evening Miss Lopez.” The Devil greets Ella before Chloe can say anything else. “Not that I don’t enjoy seeing you, but what are you doing here?”

“Chloe told me to meet you guys here asap for the sting operation.”

He nods and grabs his drink. “Want one?”

“Sure.” She answers as she takes the glass Lucifer offers her. “Is the hunk I saw on the way up your friend?”

“Indeed he is.” He smiles. “Would you like me to give you his number? You’re very much his type.”

“Lucifer! Ella!” Chloe interjects before the brunette can say anything to get them both to focus on the case at hand.

“Yes?” They say in unison.

“Can we please focus on the case?”

“Of course, Detective.” Lucifer says.

Ella doesn’t say anything but can’t help but smile as she sees Lucifer’s obliviousness to Chloe’s jealousy. She joins them to sit at the table. Chloe takes out a very thick case file and opens it in front of her. She splits it into three different piles.

“So here is the backstory for the case.”

Before she can continue, the elevator opens again. “Another guest to the party, Detective?” His voice has a tinge of irony in it.

“In a way. Something was missing.” She jokes then she walks towards the delivery guy. “I ordered burgers.” She says as she brings a brown bag to the table.

She feels the ping of guilt because she kinda used Ella to avoid being alone with him and also because she knew this isn’t how Lucifer envisioned the revisit of their failed first attempt. She truly thought he had forgotten about this moment, and after all that happened recently - specifically after his words and concerns for her today - she wasn’t entirely sure anymore she could stick to her rule of keeping it professional between them.

“And guess what, this time we have condiments.” She adds, in an attempt to make a joke. Lucifer slightly smiles at her inside joke but she can sense his slight disappointment that she invited Ella over. But he is sure there would be plenty of other opportunities to revisit this meal option. With this last sentence, she decides that to go back to the case is probably the safest option for now. She sits back down as Ella grabs her fries. 

“This is your backstory, Ella.” She hands Ella one of the piles. “You will be Ellaine Gomez, a 30-year-old computer genius, under the guardianship of your lovely Godfather, Lucifer Morningstar. You were put under his guardianship because you got caught after you hacked the top five casinos in Las Vegas.”

“Let me guess, I hacked the machines so that only my specific combination would set them to win and I got under the guardianship of my godfather because my parents died in a horrible car crash?”

“Well, we didn’t mention the car crash, just that your parents were unable to take on the responsibility of your guardianship.”

“Are you sure this is a fake backstory, Miss Lopez?” Lucifer says gently.

Ella looks away. “Well for some of it yes.”

“What do you mean?” Chloe asks.

The brunette stares at her food, not sure where to begin. After what she said, she either told too much or too little, but she had no choice but to come clean to her friends and disclose some of her past. She takes a breath and finishes her glass.

“Back in my teenage years, my parents had a horrible car accident and died. I was left to be raised by my brothers and my Abuelita. When I reached my sweet sixteen I decided to pay the City of Sins a visit.” She looks up slowly. “I needed cash, I was a smart girl so I gambled a lot. It didn’t take long for me to realise that counting cards was way more efficient to win than to rely on sheer luck. Unfortunately, it didn’t go unnoticed to the casinos’ security and I got caught.” She pauses and finishes her drink. “They arrested me and blacklisted me from all casinos there. But given my past, my age and what happened, they decided to let me off with a simple warning, no probation or juvie time, so none of this was entered in the system.”

“Ella, I’m so sorry about what happened to you. I had no idea. If this is too close to home, we can always…”

“It’s fine, Chloe.” She seems relieved. “I never told you about this because I was scared of how you would react.” She admits.

Chloe stands up and walks over to Ella. She hugs her. “You’re my friend, a tribe member.” She starts. “What you did in the past is the past, everyone has to carry their burden.” She walks back to her seat. “And this happened before or after your grandma taught you how to pick locks and you stole cars for your brothers?”

“That was way before.” She replies, truly happy to have been able to get this off her chest without changing their opinion of her.

“Besides, like you once said to me, Miss Lopez. What did you do that was so bad, rebel against your family.” Lucifer adds, a sincere smile on his face.

“Thank you, Guys. This means a lot to me.”

Chloe hands Lucifer his file. He opens and scoffs.

“What is it?”

“Why does Miss Lopez get a secret identity and I don’t?” He points at his fake story. “I mean I know you don’t mess with perfection but what’s the point of going undercover if I remain myself?”

“Well first, we’re going undercover to catch a killer, not start a roleplay.” She continues before any reply can come out of his mouth. “And second, you’re unable to lie so I had to do with what I had. Also, you’re too much of a public figure to fake your profile. It would have taken too many resources to change your media history.” She takes her last burger’s bite before she continues. “So you’ll be Lucifer Morningstar, Godfather and guardian of Ellaine Gomez. Which means that as long as she’s your ward, wherever she goes, you go.”

“And what about you, Detective? Surely you’re not going to let us walk into this sting on our own?”

“Of course not, it’d be like leaving a toddler on his own.” She looks straight at Lucifer as she says it.

“Detective, come on, Miss Lopez might be young, but she is certainly not a child.”

“Dude!” Ella laughs. “She was talking about you, not me.”

“But…” He starts, pretending to be offended.

“Anyway.” Chloe interrupts him. “I will be Chloe Baxter, a brown-haired freelance journalist, who happens to be dating Ellaine’s godfather.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Detective.” He replies, his voice dropping low.

Chloe closes her file. “We start the sting in a couple of days.” She continues, ignoring Lucifer’s reply on purpose. “It’s the time the techs need to build up your backstories and make sure it’s rock-solid if they ever decide to check it out - which they will certainly do. And if what we were told is true, they are good, so we need to be better.” She closes the main folder. “Miss Morris arranged for us to have a duplex apartment inside of the secured campus. Her spy will introduce Ella to the circle of developers a couple of days after we settle in. I’ve also given her instructions regarding the surveillance in the area.”

“So what do we do until Miss Lopez is admitted in the circle?”

“We blend in and play house I guess, so Ella can work her magic with computers.”

“It’s called coding Chloe,” Ella replies. “And I’ll be at the top of my game, I promise.”

“Great.” She stands up.

“Where are you going, Detective?”

“I don’t know how long this is going to last, so I’m going to spend time with my daughter before this starts. But you can reach me by phone if you have any questions about your characters.” She replies, honestly.

“I’ll leave with you, Chloe.” Ella says.

“Well then, I’ll guess I’ll pop down at Lux and see what’s happening there since you’re all leaving me.” He winks. “I’ll see you in a couple of days Ellaine, and I can’t for this to start. This is going to be fun, Darling.”

_ Los Angeles - Mac Arthur Park’s secured campus - A couple of days later - 9 am _

Lucifer was already waiting at the gates of the secured residence as a black limo pulled up in front of him. He wore his usual Prada black three-piece suit with a dark purple silk shirt under his vest and a matte pair of the latest Louboutin Gerro shoes. He put his hand in his pocket and leaned against the wall as the door of the limo opened. He got a glimpse of Chloe in the car. She wore a simple light orange summer dress and sandals. Her now brown-coloured hair matching her skin and outfit perfectly, highlighting her blue eyes. Lucifer opened his mouth but nothing came out of it.

“Devil got your tongue?” Chloe teases him.

“Detect…” Then he remembers where they’re about to enter. “Darling, you simply look stunning.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to look less than my best to meet you. After all, I’m now the girlfriend of one of the most eligible bachelors in LA.” She replies, echoing their previous conversation about the victim. She was amazed at how easily she slipped into her character, and not sure which part was pretending and which part wasn’t.

As Lucifer is about to answer, an authoritative voice breaks their banter. “If you two are done flirting, can you please get into the car so we can enter the residence?” Morgan Morris says.

Lucifer looks outraged at the tone she used. No one orders him around. Chloe looks at him, her eyes begging him to forget about this and get into the car. He huffs and finally gets in. Ella chuckles. Chloe didn’t even need to talk to get Lucifer to do what she wanted. But at the same time, she wasn’t anyone.

“Hey, Uncle Luci!” Ella greets him.

“Hello Miss Lop… I mean Ellaine.”

“Alright, Richie.” Morris says to her driver/bodyguard. “I think they’re all set, you can drive us to the house now.”

The car starts again and they pass the security checks without any issue and they drive for a couple of minutes before they come to a stop. They get out of the car to find themselves in front of a small house stuck in-between two apartment buildings.

“This is your house for the length of this operation.”

“Miss Morris, I thought we were supposed to be in a duplex apartment.”

“Yes, but I figured a house would give you more privacy in case you needed to discuss your findings or investigations. It was also more discreet to install the surveillance here, than in an apartment building. As requested, no CCTV has been placed inside the house, only on the outside near each entry point and on a one-mile radius.” She gives Chloe a small tablet. “You can control them from this device. I also took the liberty of including a high level of protection on the CCTV feed to avoid any unwanted guests on your network, other than your team that is.” She shows them the first floor. “This will be for our couple of the year. You have your suite with a small living room and a kitchen.” She then shows the ground floor. “This will be for you.” She tells Ella. “You have your private entrance at the back of the house, your suite of course and complete access to the big living room and kitchen as well.”

“Thank you, Miss Morris.” Chloe says, sincere. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything.”

“Just catch whoever killed him.” She simply replies as she gets back into her car and drives off.

Lucifer offers his arm to Chloe and dangles the keys to the house in front of her nose. “Shall we Darling?”

“We shall.” Chloe replies, as she takes his arm, but keeps her distance nonetheless.

“This is going to be so much fun!” Ella whispers as she follows them into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a bit shorter than the usual but I wanted to publish at least part 1 before I went on holidays. Part 2 is already on-going. Once again thanks a lot for all the support, kudos, likes and comments!!!


	3. CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

As soon as Ella steps into the house she looks like a kid on Christmas morning. She has worked as a forensic scientist for years now, but her job is usually limited to driving to crime scenes and then back to her lab, but never has she yet been offered to take part in a sting operation - until now. It takes all her willpower not to bounce around the place and squeal. This is her first-ever undercover operation, and as a bonus, two of her dearest friends would be with her for this new experience. She turns to face Lucifer and Chloe.

“Oh my God, Guys! Look at this kitchen. It’s bigger than my condo.” She walks around. The kitchen of the common area is a typical open kitchen with a counter in the middle, mixing the latest technology of domotics and designer appliances perfectly. Almost all of them can be controlled from a smartphone. She then walks into the common dining room. It consists of a huge plain wood dining table and a coffee corner with leather couches and a metal low table, all mixed in a modern/classical style. She jumps on the couch and presses the remote control. A huge flatscreen TV appears from the ceiling. “This place is just amazing!” She adds as she heads towards her own space. Her room is as big as half of the living room and contains a king-sized bed, small office space and her living room. All in all, her space is big enough to be considered a small condo. She comes back and grabs her stuff she dropped somewhere near the couch. “This is going to be SOOOO cool!” She says as she sits back on the sofa.

Chloe smiles at Ella because the situation kinda makes her feel as if Trixie has somehow taken over the brunette body. “Remember Ella, this is a sting operation, not holidays!” The Detective winks and heads to her - or rather their - quarters for the next days or weeks, depending on how it would go.

She lets her bag fall to the floor and finally opens the door. Her jaw drops as she takes in the whole suite. It’s decorated with very good tastes and bears a lot of similarities to Lux. She can see the bottom of a huge bed on the other end of the ensuite living-room - to which she doesn’t pay too much attention to because it looks very plain compared to the rest of the house and the bedroom. Except for the black marble desk on which she puts her stuff on, and the safe under it in which she’ll be able to leave her gun and case information. She walks on and reaches the bedroom. The bed looks really comfortable and spacey, covered with black sheets and A LOT of fluffy cushions. She resists the urge to test it out and continues to walk into the ensuite bathroom and walk-in closet. It is the first time she has ever seen a bathroom that lavish, although she has no doubt Lucifer’s bathroom would probably look a lot like this one. Chloe immediately looks for a secondary bed but doesn’t find any, and she doesn’t need to turn around to see Lucifer’s grin as he also takes this new information in.

“I have to say that whoever decorated this place has very good tastes.” He walks by the Detective and can see her eye-roll from the corner of his eyes. He continues, still grinning, to walk into the walk-in closet of their suite. “And it seems that all our belongings for this little sting are all here.” He browses through his and her clothes. He takes out a lovely red and white summer dress and shows it to Chloe. “Did you pick them out yourself?” He asks, thrilled by the simple garment.

“For some yes.” She stops herself from adding that she picked this one on purpose because she probably thought he would like it. “The precinct picked the rest after I gave them some examples of what I had in mind. We’re not all control freaks when it comes to how we dress, Lucifer...” She adds as she knows he made sure to pick ALL his suits himself.

“Well, this one is positively sinful, Darling,” he replies as he puts the dress back.

“I…” Chloe starts, but before she can continue, a cheerful voice interrupts them. “Wooooow!” Ella says. “This place is even sicker than mine!” She completes as she walks in. Then she smiles. “One bed though...” She winks at Chloe.

Lucifer simply smirks at the brunette’s remark. Chloe turns towards Ella, her face as serious as she can make it. “We’re both grown-ups, Ella, and we’re NOT a bunch of horny teenagers.” She says this last part looking straight at Lucifer.

“Well I’m not a teenager anymore, but I’m certainly…”

“WE can contain ourselves,” Chloe interrupts Lucifer before he can follow through with his reply. She quickly walks out of the room, avoiding his eyes this time. “Now how about we start to work on our battle plan for this operation,” she finishes, as part of her brain still tries to figure out how she is going to avoid doing anything stupid with her work partner if she has to share a bed and house life with him for the time of this sting - even she isn’t probably that strong.

Lucifer follows her soon after, asking himself about the same question. He may have been able to fool them - himself included - for the time being and hide behind his smirk, but in truth, this sting was going to be more than what he had imagined in terms of self-control, as the promise he made her a couple of days still echoes in his head. However, part of him is also eager to start this little make-believe as he can actually get to discover Chloe from another angle, and this was going to be interesting, to say the least.

After about half an hour of talking about general topics about the operation - or rather Chloe treating them as children and giving them all sorts of advice on how to not blow this up before they can get to their target - they decide to go and take a walk around the secured lot to check what their exit options could be if they ever needed some. Their lot is like a small city within the city of Los Angeles, and it is almost possible to have everything at hand without ever leaving it. It takes them about three hours to visit the whole neighbourhood and Chloe takes this chance to localise as many surveillance devices as she can. To her surprise, almost everywhere in the lot is covered by them, except a small part near the main “office” and less than a dozen alleys which run in-between buildings. As Morris explained quickly the “office” inside the lot has its specific feed to avoid any secrets being taken out or hacked. 

Other than that, they count about thirty apartments, some shared between roommates of the same age, and others shared by the employees and their families. A community pool is also available for any of them to use at all hours, a fitness centre, tennis courts, baseball pitch, football/rugby/soccer field. A common movie room big enough to accommodate about fifty people at a time is also at the residents’ disposal. And finally a main single-storey building - fully covered in tainted glass - that offers all types of entertainment like video games, table tennis, couch area, a small kitchen, common workspaces… From the outside, this building seems to be some sort of casual co-working space where the employees usually come to eat and have off-meetings and such, but it is so much more than just this. They even notice a bus that drives through the lot four to five times a day, to bring the employees from their place to the “office”, stopping at different places along the way. In case any resident needs to get to the headquarter, a specific free shuttle runs three times a day - in the morning, midday and in the afternoon. Besides, there is a weekly delivery for their grocery shopping. All in all this place offers a lot of things and makes sure that all employees who live there have as little to worry about as possible, so they can be entirely focused on their job.

Once they walk past the main common space, Ella stops.

“Do you mind if we continue this tour a bit later on,” she asks but adds as none of her colleagues reply. “I’ve seen there are some people in the game/meeting/kitchen area and I’d like to check it out, you know mingle a little. After all, I am here for that, and I don’t think it would be very believable to have me spend my time with my guardian and his girlfriend.”

“Sure,” Chloe says, hesitant. “Meet you back for dinner?”

“Yes, Mom,” Ella jokes.

Chloe smiles and turns around to walk back to their house. Lucifer smirks.

“What?” She asks, a bit pissed.

“You do know that she is a grown woman?”

“Of course,” Chloe replies. “It’s just that it’s her first case undercover and I…,” she stops as she realises that she indeed went all mother on her. “I just went all mama bear on her, didn’t I,” she asks as she recalls her earlier speech about the DOs and DONTs of a sting operation.

“A little,” he admits. “But it’s not as bad as when Maze went on her bounty in Canada,” he jokes as he recalls their discussion at the precinct.

“Well, if I remember correctly, I wasn’t the only one being protective at the time.”

He simply chuckles as they continue to walk towards their house. He opens the door and lets Chloe in before he follows. He closes the front door and heads for their suite. Chloe looks at him, a bit surprised. Lucifer sees her silent question and simply smiles.

“I figured, since my favourite goddaughter decided to investigate on her own, I could use this time to enjoy the pool and swim for a while.” Lucifer smiles. “Feel free to join me if you feel like it.” He winks before he disappears at the top of the stairs. He comes downstairs only a couple of minutes later, dressed in black, very luxurious swim trunks, towel on the shoulder. “Reached your decision?” He asks as he sees the look Chloe gives him as he comes down the stairs. “ _ Well, that’s interesting. _ ” He thinks to himself, as he expects the blunt refusal of his partner.

“I’ll…,” Chloe stops mid-sentence. “Maybe later?” She finally says.

“Really?” Lucifer replies, surprised for the second time since they started the sting.

“I have to review some elements about the case and maybe call Trixie before her class starts again, but maybe later.”

He gives her a smile that says plenty about how he feels at the prospect of seeing her later. “Well, you know where to find me, Darling,” he casually replies, still happy she entertained the idea of joining him later, even if it was just to be nice to him.

After more than an hour reviewing the case and some possible leads they might have missed, she looks at the clock to check the time as she is prone to get lost in her world when focused on a specific task. 

“Shit!” She says as she realises it’s way past lunchtime. She looks at her phone, worried Ella might have run into some troubles as she said she’d be back for lunch later on. No missed calls or texts. She quickly sends a message to Ella asking where she was at and if she planned to come home soon.

Then she decides to head outside, to relax a bit, even maybe swim a little to ease that tension she felt at the moment. She walks back to her - or rather their - room to change into her swimming suit. She wonders for a moment what the department picked for her as they did most of the shopping for this, but when she sees the bathing suit she can’t help but roll her eyes as she realises it is the exact copy of the one she wore in Hot Tub Highschool. She looks in her stuff to see if there is another one, however it seems to be the only one available. She puts it on and heads outside, ready to scold Lucifer for this, but stops as she finds him asleep on a deckchair, by the pool. She can see he’s almost dried off and as she sees the ice-cold bottle of water a few feet away from him, the perfect revenge plan for his choice of swimsuit falls into place. She opens the bottle and almost hesitates for a second before she empties the container in one go on him. She can’t help her smile at her prank as she sees his reaction.

“Bloody Hell!” He suddenly sits up, surprised by the ice-cold water on his very hot skin. He looks around for the culprit when he sees Chloe, weapon in hands, a smirk on her face, and wearing what he chose - or rather what the department picked for her on his advice. “Did you just empty that bottle on me?” He asks, torn between anger and pride.

“Oopsy,” Chloe simply says. “It was an accident?”

“An accident, right.” He takes her in fully. “Although I see you found the swimsuit the department chose for you.”

“The department, right.” She looks straight at him and is surprised by the fire she sees in his eyes.

“Well with my artistic advice.” He smiles. “And from what I see it was one very good choice.”

“I swear, if you make a reference to me losing the top of this swimsuit, I WILL shoot you again.”

To her surprise, he laughs but doesn’t push, as per his promise. “So this was an accident?”

“Well, accidents happen all the time, Lucifer.” She replies innocently. She doesn’t see his next move until it’s too late. Lucifer catches her before she can run away, his hands holding her by the waist set to get her back for her accident by throwing her in the pool. Out of reflex, Chloe grabs him as she falls into the water, bringing the Devil with her fall. As they both resurface from their tumble, they finally realise their very close proximity and all of their movements freeze. However, they make no move to separate, Lucifer’s hands still on Chloe’s hips, while she still holds him by the shoulders. They simply stare at each other, not sure what to do, or rather not daring to do anything, but not willing to get away from each other either. Lucifer does his best to let her make the first move if she so wishes, but his self-control wanes the longer he looks at her. He can see the same struggle in her eyes, and right this instant, the promise he made her a couple of days ago, seems to be one of the hardest to keep. He can finally see her face moving closer to his like a magnet is attracted to metal. She doesn’t seem to be able to stop the pull towards his lips.

A loud slam suddenly brings them both back to reality and they jump away from each other - or rather Chloe pushes herself off Lucifer - as if they had received a bucket of ice on their heads. She quickly swims a couple of steps away from Lucifer, her eyes still centred on his, almost apologetic, just in time to see Ella walk outside to meet them. Chloe quickly gets out of the pool, flushed.

“I have to…,” she pauses, not sure what to say next. “I have to check if Trixie called me back.” 

“Am I interrupting anything?” Ella asks, aware of the tension in the air. “Because if I am, I can totally come back later and…”

“Don’t make anything of it Miss Lopez” Lucifer interrupts her. “Accidents happen all the time.” He repeats what Chloe said before on purpose, his voice sounding a bit hurt at the thought of Choe recoiling from his touch in this way.

“Okay…,” Ella says, not sure what he meant, but kinda used to his nonsense. “Meet you inside in a few?”

“Of course,” he replies, his facade now back on. “Just let me get change and I’ll be down in a blink.” Ella smiles.

He quickly gets out of the water and dries himself off with his towel to avoid dripping water everywhere while he walks towards their apartment. He knocks on the door before he walks in. He finds Chloe almost dressed and ready to go meet Ella in the living-room. She avoids his eyes at all costs, not sure how to react after what almost happened and what could have happened if not for Ella’s arrival. She decides to put the whole  _ accident _ behind her and goes for a non-committal reply.

“Meet you downstairs once you’re done?”

“Of course, Detective.” Lucifer heads for the walk-in closet but he turns at the last minute. “Detecti…” He stops. “Chloe,” The use of her name makes her turn around almost immediately. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

“What do you mean?” She asks, her tone as neutral as she can make it - given how she feels in this very moment.

“The moment we had in the pool?” He asks as he takes a step closer.

“Oh,” she replies. “I’m not sure, to be honest,” she continues as she recalls the chills she felt when he held her or the one she feels right now as he comes closer to her even more. “ _ Oh come on, Chloe, get a grip, this is Lucifer, what do you think it means? _ ” She tells herself. “I guess I would call it revenge.”

“Is that all it was?” He asks, not sure. When she doesn’t reply, he quickly continues. “Never mind, forget I said anything. I’ll meet you downstairs with Miss Lopez once I’ve showered and dressed,” he ends as he walks towards the shower.

After a good twenty minutes, Lucifer finally comes down, wearing a more relaxed outfit. He sports a dark red casual shirt and some black dress jeans - of course perfectly fit for him. He also holds a light leather jacket in hand to complete his look. Chloe watches him until he reaches them. Ella doesn’t seem - or pretends not to - notice Chloe’s stare. Lucifer ignores the Detective on purpose and directly addresses Ella.

“So, Ellaine,” he emphasizes her sting name on purpose, “what fun news did you discover while playing video games with your new friends?”

Ella looks over at Chloe, aware something definitely went down while she was away but unable to figure out what yet. She makes a mental note to ask Chloe later on. She ignores the tension for now and concentrates on her report.

“I think I may have talked to one of the members of the circle.”

“Why do you say that?” Chloe enquiries, now back into her usual cop-mode.

“Well, he was very secretive and kept talking about a weekly event that is supposed to be very selective and all. He said he could try to get me in.”

“Or maybe he just wanted to lure you into their weekly frat parties. And to sell it, he made up a whole bunch of secrets.” Lucifer counters.

“It’s still worth investigating though,” Chloe says. “Given the amount of information we have, we can’t leave any stones we find unturned.”

“What if it’s dangerous?” Lucifer counters.

“Relax, Dude,” Ella replies. “At best, I get introduced to the circle or at worst, I get to enjoy a frat party.” 

“When is this event going to happen?” Chloe asks.

“Tonight.”

“Do you have a time, or a location, or anything that could allow us to locate you at some point?”

“Not yet. But I can send you a message every half-hour. This way if I miss one, you can look for me. I’ll confirm when I get there where I am and if it is indeed a party or the real thing.” Ella pauses. “Do you know who our inside man is by the way?”

“Okay,” Chloe agrees. “And no we don’t. Morris never shared a description, just a name. Jet.”

“So not my guy, then,” Ella completes. “His name was Doug. I’ll be keeping an eye out if I see him at some point and try to discover the identity of our mysterious Jet.”

“See, I told you it was a frat party,” Lucifer adds. “Any idea when our nerdy contact is meant to reach us?”

“According to what she told me, she wanted him to wait a bit before he made contact with us. So I would say we’ll probably see him tomorrow or the day after.”

“Nice,” Ella concludes. “Let me know when he finally contacts us. In the meantime, I’ll be getting ready for later and probably just review a couple of pieces of information that the precinct sent over for on-going cases I left unsolved before the sting started.” Ella winks at Chloe. “After all, this isn’t a vacation, right?”

The rest of the afternoon and beginning of the evening goes rather well - given what happened earlier - tension fading a bit, although both Lucifer and Chloe do their best to avoid each other. As a result, the duo doesn’t talk much either, or only to exchange pleasantries. After some awkward silences, Chloe decides to go for a run to try and empty her mind, while Lucifer chooses to stay in and read a bit, drink in hand - per usual - while chatting with Ella from time to time, until the Detective comes back.

Around 8:30 pm Ella finally steps out of her room, ready to meet her new friends and see where Doug decided to bring her. She wore her usual attire with a new blue t-shirt with a quote which says “Nerd? I prefer the term more intelligent than you”. Chloe can’t help but smile as she sees the outfit of the forensic tech. 

“Remember, a text every half hour if it’s not a frat party and the location as soon as you can send it over.” Chloe insists before the brunette leaves.

“Promise!” She replies. “And you guys, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Lucifer huffs, not loud enough for either of the women to hear.

Once Ella is gone, some kind of weird silence settles between them, both not sure what to do, or where to start, neither willing to talk about the elephant in the room. 

“Do you fancy a drink, Detective?” Lucifer asks, just to break the silence and in an attempt to re-establish the communication between them.

“Why not,” she replies.

“What’s your poison? Gin, vodka, whiskey, red wine?” He asks as he reviews what their bar has to offer.

“Wine is good.” 

Lucifer pours her a glass and decides to take one for himself as well. They settle with a six-foot distance between them. But before neither of them can speak, a loud knock on the door interrupts them. 

“I’ll get it,” Chloe says, taking the chance to do something. She opens the door and falls face to face with a very stylish man, around thirty-five, and clearly taking care of himself in more ways than one. “Hi,” she greets him. “How can I help you?”

“Hi,” he replies. “Are you Ellaine?”

“No, I’m Chloe. Ellaine is not here at the moment. Who are you?”

“I’m Jet. Miss Morris sent me, you know about the  _ Circle _ .”

“Hello, Jet. Nice to meet you.” Chloe smiles. “Do you want to come in?”

“With pleasure.” He smiles back at her. “You know what,  _ Chloe _ , I’m very happy you’re not Ellaine.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you’re a very charming woman, and I never mix business with pleasure, so it would have been a shame if you had been Ellaine, because…” He stops as he sees Lucifer stepping behind the Detective, hands coming to rest on her waist.

“Ah! Nerdy boy is here,” he interrupts him. He takes in his appearance, 6ft, perfect outfit, tanned body, curly jet black hair, just the right amount of cockiness. “Not so nerdy after all it would appear,” he adds as he extends his hand to him. “I’m Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe’s  _ boyfriend _ .” 

Jet doesn’t shake it and simply winks at Chloe, completely unphased by Lucifer. “I guess I’ll have to come back tomorrow then. Can you let Ellaine know I stopped by.” He winks at Chloe.

Lucifer’s hand tightens just slightly around Chloe’s hip. “Yeah, you do that. Have a nice evening.” He finishes as he shuts the door behind him.

As soon as the door closes, Chloe turns to Lucifer and removes his hand from her hips. A part of her already misses the contact, but a good part of her way too pissed at him to reflect on it yet. 

“What the hell was that?”

“What do you mean?” 

“You know very well what I mean, Lucifer.” She rolls her eyes and looks straight at him, angry. “Need I remind you that this man is our current - and only - lead to this case?”

“Great!” He takes a step towards her and she takes a step back to keep the distance between them. Right now is not a time to get distracted by his touch. “Why don’t you go sleep with him then?” He moves closer again. “You seem to be rather willing.”

His last reply completely sets her off and she explodes. She stops stepping back from him and gasps, anger now fully taking control of her.

“You are UNBELIEVABLE!” She says. “Even if I wanted to sleep with him, I don’t see how this would be any of your business.” He opens his mouth to reply, but she doesn’t give him the chance. “You don’t see me get jealous each time you sleep with the first blonde that comes into the room.”

“Well, clearly not every blonde.” He replies, sarcastic.

She laughs, more out of nervousness as she still can’t believe him and his reaction. “Right, because surely it’s every girl’s dream to be another notch to the mighty Lucifer Morningstar’s bedpost.”

“Who said it would be a notch?” He replies, now getting angry as well that she would just assume this, especially after all he did.

“Oh I don’t know, how about every single one of your conquests I stumble upon at your place, or how about every time you’ve mentioned it in the past.”

“Or maybe you just never bothered to ask me my thoughts on it, and just assume everything.” He smirks, knowing he hit a spot with his reply. However, his reply has the opposite effect on Chloe and angers her even more. He takes a step closer as she doesn’t reply, but simply groans. “Afraid you might like it, Detective?” He asks, hiding his discomfort at the unexpected serious turn of their conversation behind his cockiness. “You know, it might not be this bad to loosen up once in a while and have a bit of fun.”

“See this is exactly what I meant,” she replies. “And I take it you would be that fun part. Or maybe I should call Jet and  _ have fun _ .”

“Jet wouldn’t offer the tenth of what I can do,” he answers. “It would be the best-time-of-your-life kind of fun with me,” he adds, his chest slightly puffing. “Not that you’d know what fun is anyway.”

He now stands very close to her, none of them willing to move one inch from their position on this debate.

“You know what, yes I’ll admit that you are charming and sexy, and attractive, but you are also so frustrating, annoying, selfish and completely unaware of the others around you. So I might not know what your definition of  _ fun  _ is, but I have responsibilities, not that this speaks to you anyway. And yes, I’m tempted to give in sometimes, but this,” she motions between their very close bodies “reminds me exactly why it would be a bad idea and why it would never work out. My idea of fun is spending a quiet evening with Trixie, or reading a book. Your idea of fun is having orgies up in your penthouse and meaningless sex, with a touch of whiskey. So guess what, even if sometimes I want to take you up on your offer, I just can’t.”

“Why not?” He simply asks, ignoring her whole tirade on his so-called abnormal sex life.

“Because this is a part of growing up, and unlike you, I don’t get to do what I want, when I want, no matter how tempting it sounds.” “ _ And because I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop or do the one-night thing if I gave in _ ” She adds in her mind.

“Why not?” He repeats.

“Not everyone has the luxury of following all of their desires.” She replies.

“How about you try and follow a single? All you think about is responsibilities and work. You’re the only human who seems to be able to resist me.”

She sighs in frustration. “Do you really think I don’t know what you look like, or that I never thought about what it would be like to sleep with you, or that you don’t have any effect on me when you’re close?” She doesn’t notice Lucifer’s stunned face after her half-hidden confession that he indeed affected her more than she let on, but again she was an actress. Instead, she continues. “But I just can’t. You mean too much as a friend and as a partner for me to ruin all this over one night of sex, no matter how good it can be.” She finishes, her cards now all on the table.

He doesn’t reply straight after she finishes. He had expected this to go many ways, but this one was not in his plans. “What if it’s not just one night,” he quietly says, suddenly very calm. He gives her time to reply, but she doesn’t. “What if I want more than just one night?”

“It’s not just this, not just what you want, or what I want,” she finally says. “We’re just not… It wouldn’t work out.”

“Why not?” He asks for the third time, but this time, meaning it fully.

“Because you’re too you!” She says, out of arguments. 

She decides to mark the end of their conversation and starts to walk away from him towards their room to get away from him for a moment before she forgets why she thought it wasn’t a good idea in the first place. She managed to hide so far, but all he had said, especially the last part about him wanting more than  _ just one night _ hit deep within her and awakened some buried feelings she thought were under control. She closes the door, hoping Lucifer wouldn’t follow her in. She puts her head on the door as she hears him coming after her, but stopping, hand on the handle.

“You’re aware that this conversation isn’t over, and that we actually have to share this house for the upcoming days.”

Chloe takes a deep breath in an attempt to get herself under control, as she can almost feel his heat on the other side of the door. Part of her wants to give him - them - a try, but part of her also keeps on replaying all those times she saw him flirting and charming his way around, or his latest statement only a week ago that he  _ didn’t do relationship _ ”.

“You can’t hide forever, Detective.” He tries again.

She sighs and finally opens the door. She walks straight past him, fully set on forgetting the last five minutes, at least until she can figure herself out. However, Lucifer has other ideas and follows her down the stairs as she heads for the kitchen to get a glass of water.

“Detective,” he starts. “What part of  _ this conversation isn’t over _ didn’t you get exactly?” His tone is not pissed, but more ironic.

Chloe stops in her tracks and turns to face him, almost bumping into him. “Yes, it is.” She backs towards the counter until her back hits it. “What point is there to talk about it anyway, it’s never gonna happen.”

“At least give the real reason why.”

“I have…”

“No, you haven’t. All you’ve given me are excuses.”

“I told you, you’re too…”

“I know I’m too me. And yet this doesn’t seem to bother you usually.” He looks into her eyes. “Besides, you of all people should know there are more layers to me than just the club owner and dashing playboy.” He challenges her.

“I never said that you were only that” she corrects him. “As you once said, you’re a hat and I’m a shoe…”

“That was weeks ago,” he interrupts her. “And maybe I want to discover what it’s like to be a shoe.” He pauses. “And no one said a shoe and a hat don’t match, you just have to find the right combination.”

Chloe feels her resolve disappear as Lucifer’s words sink in. She tries to escape, but to no avail, as Lucifer blocks her way out. Not enough to stop her fully, but enough so that she would need to push him away slightly.

“You’re gonna have to be more convincing than this, Detective. Now that the subject is open, and I know how you feel…”

“What about your promise to not push to sleep with me?” She interrupts him before he’s able to finish.

“I promised to stop and try to sleep with you. I never said I wouldn’t try and get why it was a bad idea.” He smirks at her, proud of the loophole he just found. 

However, this only annoys Chloe further and she drops the glass in the sink, all her frustration and annoyance coming up this moment.

“You want to know the real reason why?” She doesn’t give him any time to reply. “It’s because I don’t want to look over my shoulder to know which guest you entertained over at your penthouse, or to whom you gave your number for later use,” she adds as she recalls the receptionist when they went to see Morris the first time. “I want to be sure that I can fully trust you. And for now, it’s not something I’m sure I can do.” She takes a breath and continues before he can misinterpret what she said. “I trust you as a partner and as a friend because you have my back, but I’m not sure if I can trust you to be more than a friend.” She finishes, out of breath.

He laughs. “Right, because you’re so  _ trustworthy _ yourself.” He tries to counter, but soon he realises that he spoke too soon, out of frustration. 

This time, it’s Chloe’s turn to smirk as she waits for his example that he won’t find any time soon. He smiles suddenly.

“How about this time when you arrested me after the preacher got killed?”

“You mean after I was on your side and trying to help you but you misunderstood and walked away from me to deal with all this on your own, against my advice, and then I also ended helping you,” she says, still angry but unable to hide the smugness in her voice as she knows she has him cornered. She relaxes slightly and crosses her arms. “Still waiting for your example.”

He clears his throat. “How about this time you showed up drunk at my place and wanted to sleep with me when  _ I  _ rejected you?”

“How is this relevant to the topic of trust?”

“Well you had just gotten back with the Douche, so technically you were about to cheat on him. Not that I mind…” He says, pleased with himself.

“First we agreed to never mention this again. As I said, it was a fluke,” she replies, annoyed at how he uses this against her. “And second, I was drunk and Dan had just dumped me, so technically I wasn’t involved with him anymore, so your argument doesn’t stick.” She answers, daring him to find another example.

For the first, Lucifer doesn’t know what to say. Chloe puts her hand on his chest to push him away so she can finally have a bit of space to stop her mind from going crazy. “This proves my point exactly.” 

Her hand on his body breaks his trance and he looks at her, the only feeling shown on his face now being a disappointment or hurt at both himself and the fact she admitted she couldn’t trust him.

“Or maybe this just proves that you don’t trust me enough to believe that I can change and be a different person with you.” He finally admits. “I’m the Devil after all.”

As she witnesses the display of emotions pass through his face, Chloe realises for the first time that they’ve known each other, he finally lets the tiniest crack in this giant wall happen, which he built around him because of his twisted family history. As if erased by some magic markers, all her doubts and anger disappears as all she sees is her partner’s doubt. His eyes remind her of this time after he claimed to have lost his brother. Except this time, she was determined to not give up. She moves her hand from his shoulder to his cheek. She turns his face so she can see his eyes.

“I trust you fully, Lucifer.” She says, her tone soft, trying to find a way to prove she meant what she said, and she saw him for who he really was. She keeps eye contact with him and decides to drop a kiss on his cheek.

However, the moment her lips touch his skin, she realises that she made a big mistake as she feels as if a small fire had been lit up within her. She slowly moves away from his cheek until she stands mere inches from his lips, not sure what she should do.

“Detective…” Lucifer whispers as he feels her breath on his soft lips, not sure if he can trust his senses right now, after the emotional rollercoaster that just happened. How they went from being at each other’s throat to this heart to heart talk is lost by him. When she doesn’t pull back but closes the distance, he pushes her fully against the counter, hands finding her hips like earlier, only this time in a less innocent way, but as easily as if they had done this a thousand times. However, despite both their desires, they remain tentative, both enjoying the new contact and discovery. Chloe can’t help the small moan to leave her lips as the Devil deepens their kiss and lifts her so she now sits on the counter. She opens her legs to let him step in between them, and he doesn’t need to be told twice. He takes a step closer to her until she’s flushed against him. Her hands move around his body, following the taut muscles under his shirt. She lingers around his nipples, following down his stomach, feels his abs underneath, until she finally reaches his belt and untucks his shirt. She slides her fingers to rest on his ass for a bit until the shirt is out of his pants all the way. She comes back up, her fingers ghosting over his scars on the way. He hisses as he feels the light pain. She stops immediately.

“I’m so sorry,’ she apologizes quickly, her hands resting on his shoulders instead.

“It’s alright.” He smiles at her. “Just avoid the area.” He finishes as his lips find hers again to close the topic for now before it ruins their moment.

She smiles and trails her hands down his body again, following his sides to stay on the safe side as the kiss heats up quickly. She soon finds her way to the buttons of his shirt and opens them one by one, slowly, purposefully as she notices every flix of his chest as her hands go lower towards his belt. Once all buttons are done, she pushes the shirt off his shoulders and Lucifer lets it slide to the floor. He follows her initiative and slides the top off her body, leaving both of them almost fully naked from the waist up. As her fingers fumble with his belt, his movements grow rasher and he feels a tug inside of his head. It takes him a second to identify the feeling and once he realises what it is he closes his eyes, in an attempt to get himself under control. However, as soon as he opens them again and feels Chloe’s touch on his inner thighs, then over the now too tight front of his trousers he lets out a growl and his eyes turn red for a moment. He stops immediately as he feels his Devil face trying to push through. Chloe registers the change in his mood through her clouded mind. She freezes.

“Are you okay?” She whispers, worried about what she could have done to make him stop. She freezes, trying to figure what she did wrong? Did she touch his scars again when one of her hands was on his back?

“I…” Lucifer starts, not sure how to continue as almost his capacities are currently used to suppress his devil face from showing unannounced. He takes a breath and a step back. Once he has everything back under control he finally speaks. “I think this is going a bit too fast.” He pauses. “I think I need some air.” He adds.

He doesn’t give Chloe the chance to reply anything and simply picks up his shirt and heads outside by the pool before he risks to lose control again. Chloe doesn’t know to react to any of this and simply stares at him walking from her, just when things were moving forward. He surely seemed more than into it a few seconds ago. She rewinds the last fifteen minutes, trying to understand what she could have said or done that could have made him get away from her this fast, but she can’t find anything. She doesn’t want to join him outside because he requested some space, but at the same, she’s worried for him and wants to know he’s at least okay. She redresses quickly and silently walks towards the glass door and hears him talking, apparently on the phone. She takes a step closer, part of her wanting to respect his privacy, but a bigger part of her willing to know what phone call would be so important to make him leave her like this, without much explaining. Her curiosity wins the battle and she gets closer, just far enough to not be seen, but still close enough to hear him nonetheless.

“Come on, Doctor, pick up,” he starts. He hangs up and dials the same number once more. The person finally picks up right before voicemail. “Finally, Doctor!” Lucifer says.

“And a good evening to you too, Lucifer,” Linda sighs. “You do know how appointments work right?” She adds, a bit harsher than intended, but she was in the middle of a very relaxing bubble bath, and the fact that he would assume she doesn’t have a life annoyed her as well. She expects him to dismiss her comment as usual when he calls her out of her office hours, but his tone takes her by surprise.

“I am sorry to have disturbed you, Linda.”

“Don’t hang up,” she quickly replies as she hears the panic in his voice. “Tell me what happened. Is Chloe okay,” she inquires, knowing him enough by now to be almost positive that only Chloe could get him in such a distressed state.

“She is,” he answers. He can hear Linda’s relieved sigh on the other end of the phone. He looks around and starts to walk, which forces Chloe to concentrate more and get a bit closer to still hear the conversation he seemed to have with Linda. “However, something happened.”

“Okay. Tell me more.”

“Well first she - I mean we - almost kissed in the pool, but Miss Lopez interrupted us, and then the Detective got all weird with me.” Lucifer takes a breath. “And then we were both in the living-room when some fashion geek knocked and Chloe decided to seduce him.”

Linda holds her chuckle back. “Are you sure Chloe hit on him?”

“Well, she didn’t push him away either.” He replies.

“Go on,” Linda says, aware this wasn’t a battle she’d be winning today.

“And per YOUR advice I told her before the sting that I would not try to get her to sleep with me anymore, so I didn’t push, but then somehow we ended up arguing about why sleeping with me would be sooo bad and why she couldn’t let it happen.” He adds.

Chloe looks at his back, surprised he would be so open about this, coming more into view as she tries to hear the conversation.

“Lucifer…” Linda interrupts, trying to move things along.

“Alright, so in a nutshell, we went from arguing to making out on the kitchen counter.”

“And why is that an issue exactly?” She asks. “It seemed something you both wanted if what happened at the pool earlier was any indication.”

“Well because, she’s her, and I’m me.” He pauses. “My  _ other _ face almost broke through, and I could barely control it.” He sits on one of the deckchairs, his back to Chloe. “I mean I’ve had  _ many  _ partners, as you very well know, and this has never happened before.” He gives her time to reply, but when she doesn’t, he continues. “Doctor? Are you still here?”

“Yes,” Linda quickly says. “Remember this talk about intimacy and feelings that we had a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yes, but this only concerned my mortality sitch when she’s around. I’ve never had this issue so far.”

“It was, but it can also be applied here.”

“How so? She wasn’t hurting me, far from it actually.”

“Well Chloe makes you feel new things, and maybe your other half has troubles dealing with it.”

“My other half?” He repeats. “I’m not schizophrenic, Doctor.”

“What I meant is that maybe, your subconscious is sending you a message that because of what Chloe makes you feel, you want her to accept you - all of you - and not just the glamoured part of your life and your appearance.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“As much as a human psychiatrist with a celestial friend can be.”

Lucifer completely misses the irony in her answer, too caught up in his thoughts. “So what do I do? She can’t see who I truly am.”

“You have to trust that she’ll accept you for all that you are, just like she trusts you to give this a chance. Just like you did when you showed me.”

“Like that ended up well,” he mutters. “What if she doesn’t? What if she doesn’t have a Maze to pull her out of it?”

“It’s a possibility and it’s a lot to take in,” she admits. “But just like Schrödinger’s cat, the only way to find out is to open the box.”

“But…”

“Just talk to her and trust her,” she says. “And let me know how it went.”

“Very well.” He gives in. “Thank you, Linda.” He finishes, sincere before he hangs up.

He turns around to get back inside to start what will probably be the most difficult conversation of his immortal life. He catches Chloe’s silhouette disappearing behind the curtain. “Detective…” He whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I guess that is a bummer ^^.  
> Thank you again so much for all your comments, reviews, likes and shares! They make my day each time!


	4. CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

Lucifer manages to catch up with Chloe before she can get away from him. He calls out to her, not exactly sure how much of his conversation with Linda she overheard.

“Detective, wait!” 

Chloe stops and turns around, feeling like a kid caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar. But also very curious to find out what explanation he has for her.

“Detective, it’s not what you think,” he starts.

“So you didn’t call your therapist, who also happens to be my friend, to tell her about your freak out because we made out like teenagers in the kitchen?” she answers, her lingering frustration at their shortened moment evident in her voice.

“Okay, so it is what you think.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you freak out?” she completes. “You’re the one who has been trying to sleep with me since the beginning and now that I’m on board, you’re running away.” She looks in his eyes. “What did I do wrong ? Or is it simply because you’ve finally won the chase?”

“No!” he quickly answers. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” He pauses. “It’s complicated.”

“Then uncomplicate it,” she simply replies, her tone firm but also gentle. She waits for him to speak but he remains mute. “You owe me this much. I opened up to you and you ran. How do you think I feel right now?” She takes a breath, aware she may have been a bit harsh with him, but now that she’d opened Pandora’s box, she simply needed to know. She looks at him, eyes full of tenderness.

Lucifer opens his mouth to reiterate his previous statement, but then Linda’s advice flashes through his mind. “Schrödinger’s cat… Well, here goes nothing.”

“What?”

“Maybe we should get a bit of privacy for this, just in case.” He walks towards their private quarters. “You should sit down for this,” he adds once she’s joined him upstairs. “And you’ll probably need this as well.” He hands her a glass of bourbon and empties the one he poured for himself to get some liquid courage. 

“Lucifer, what is going on?” she asks, worried, as she sits down.

“You know how I never hid my devilish identity from you,” he starts.

“Lucifer,” she says, not in the mood for another of his metaphors. Apparently, her definition of “uncomplicate” and Lucifer’s seem very different.

“What if I had proof?” he interrupts her.

“Alright,” she slightly smiles. “Do I need to shoot you again?”

“Please don’t,” he replies, all forms of amusement gone from his features. “It’s better if I show you,” he finishes.

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and reopens them. Chloe blinks a few times as if to make sure what she saw was real.

“Lucifer, your eyes…” She finally talks after what feels like an eternity to the Devil. “Your eyes…,” she repeats as her brain attempts to reconcile what she just saw and what she’s been taught all these years. “So you really are the _actual_ devil?” she finally admits aloud.

“I am indeed,” Lucifer replies, not sure how to interpret her reaction. 

“So that flash I saw in the broken mirror before I shot you was real?”

“It was.” “ _So far she remains relatively sane, so this is a good thing_ ”. He tells himself.

“So all of it is true,” she adds, more for her benefit than his. She pauses to look back into his eyes, which are now back to their usual brown colour. “Can I see it?” She feels the need to see him fully to make sure her brain isn’t playing tricks on her. “I mean, can I see your face?”

Lucifer doesn’t reply as he knows he can’t really refuse her request, even though he wished he could. But the box has been opened, and there isn’t much of a choice left for him. He nods and in a blink his face changes to a bright, red, burnt flesh. He remains like this for what seems the time span of a century - but it lasts less than fifteen seconds - before he switches back to his human appearance. Chloe stays perfectly still as he looks into her eyes in search of anything that would invalidate his fears that she would reject him. He takes a step towards her and this frees her from her trance. Chloe moves back out of reflex and a deep hurt crosses his eyes.

“Detective,” he starts, not sure where to go from here.

“I need some air,” she simply replies before she exits the room, much like he did a few moments ago.

Lucifer remains silent, having seen this type of reaction one time too many. However, the fact that the Detective is the one concerned cuts him deeper than any demon daggers ever could. He helplessly watches her open the door and leave. A part of him is broken by her rejection, a part of him also relieved that the other shoe finally dropped to confirm his theory that he isn’t worthy of her. Once the blonde woman is out of sight, he grabs the bottle he brought with him and finishes it before he throws it into the mirror on the wall, the proximity of the Detective allowing him to feel the numb alcohol-induced effect as the golden liquid flows down his throat. However, his pain is quick to resurface and he lets out a deep growl as he looks at himself, disgusted by his reflection in the now broken mirror. Chloe hears Lucifer’s scream as she’s about to close the front door and his pain pierces right through her. After a moment of hesitation, she finally steps out and welcomes the fresh air on her face, as well as the silence around her.

She starts to walk around the block, aimlessly, as her brain desperately tries to compute what had happened. Then out of the fog her mind is currently in, she recalls Lucifer called Linda before he revealed himself to her and from what she understood, she was the one to advise him to show himself. Could this mean that Linda has somehow been in the know all this time, or did she just indulge his fantasies as most people did? She connects the dots and decides to call Linda to confirm her suspicions. The therapist answers almost immediately.

“Chloe.”

“Did you know?” Chloe asks straight away, not bothering with any form of politeness. “Did you know?” she repeats as Linda remains silent.

“I take it, he showed you?”

“Did you know?” she asks for the third time.

“I did.”

“How is this possible?” Chloe continues, Linda’s answer barely registering. “I mean…,” she tries as panic rises.

“Chloe!” Linda says. Her sharp tone is enough - for now - to stop Chloe’s growing fear and get the focus back on her voice. “Breathe in.” She waits to hear Chloe follow her instructions. “Breathe out.” A pause again. “And in, and out, and in, and out.” When Chloe sounds calmer, Linda resumes. “Now tell me what happened,” she asks just for the sake of it as she knows what happened, but her expertise leads her to let Chloe explain what happened in her own words.

“He showed me his face.” The Detective simply shares.

“I know it can be overwhelming, trust me on this.”

“Linda, he is the _actual_ devil!”

“I know.” Her voice is soft and understanding.

“How can you be okay with this? He’s the origin of all evil, the Prince of Lies, I mean have you ever read the Bible?” Chloe continues, at the brink of panic again.

“I wasn’t for a while,” she admits. “But I pulled through and so will you, Chloe.”

“How?” she replies. “I care for him, but I’m not sure I can ever be okay with this.”

“Maze was the one to pull me back.” Linda can hear Chloe’s nervous chuckle. “Actually it was our friendship that brought me back.”

“Oh shit!” Chloe says. “Maze is a freaking demon!”

“Chloe!” Linda interrupts her before she can lose her footing again. “Remember to breathe.” Once Linda is confident Chloe has digested most of the news, she challenges Chloe a bit. “Chloe...”

“Yes?”

“The real question you need to ask yourself is, whether you are ready or not to have him out of your life.” Linda expects Chloe to contradict her, but the Detective remains silent. “He has never lied to you and has never hidden who he truly is from you. Has he ever endangered you?”

“No,” Chloe agrees as she recalls the various times he even endangered his life to help her, despite his newly found vulnerability.

Linda can feel something shift in the way Chloe replies to her. “Do you want him to be part of your life?” she asks again.

“I think I do,” Chloe whispers.

“Then you know what to do.” Linda lets out a relieved sigh. “It might take some time to cover it all, but I’ll be here whenever you need to, and I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to answer all of your questions. Just keep an open mind. Remember he’s still the Lucifer you’ve known all this time, no matter what.”

Chloe remains silent as the truth finally dawns on her. And a weight is lifted off her chest. “Thank you, Linda.”

“You’re more than welcome, Chloe.” She hesitates. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“I think so,” Chloe replies, still not fully confident, but at least willing to give it a try.

“Alright. Call me if you need anything,” Linda adds.

“I will,” she says before she hangs up.

Once Chloe reaches the house, she has no idea how much time passed since she left and feels anxious as her hand squeezes the handle, half expecting him to be gone by now, and not sure how he is going to welcome her. She finds him sitting on the sofa in the common area, eyes staring into nothingness in front of him, a lingering sadness visible in his stance, even in the dim light.

“Lucifer?” she asks softly.

He turns his head, not sure if any of this was real, or if it was another one of the imagined come-backs of Chloe. “Detective?” His voice is tentative. He blinks a few times. “Are you truly here?”

“Yes.” She walks towards him, but this time he’s the one to step away from her. “After all, we still have a sting to complete.” She gives him a small smile, as she tries to lighten the mood. “I had to get away for a while, get some air to process it all.”

“Detective,” he starts as his eyes search hers, but he still keeps his distance. “That side of me - my monstrous side - you saw is NOT all that I am.”

“I know, I talked to Linda and…,” she stops suddenly as the front door flies open and a drunken Ella stumbles in.

“Guys!” Ella exclaims. “I had the best night in a very long time.” She looks at Lucifer, then at Chloe, then back at Lucifer. “You know what? I met our contact tonight and he introduced me to the rest of the group. I’ll meet them again tomorrow so they can,” Ella raises her fingers to air quote the next word, “test me.”

“That’s great news, Miss Lopez!” Lucifer replies, happy to get the focus off him for now. He stands up and looks at the two women. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go to bed,” he finishes.

Ella watches him head to his room, puzzled. “Am I interrupting anything again?”

“No,” Chloe lies. “But Lucifer is right, it’s late and we should go to sleep.” She walks to the kitchen to get a big glass of water. “And you need to sleep it off and drink a lot of water if you don’t want to regret it tomorrow.”

“Sure.” Ella winks at Chloe. “See you tomorrow,” she finishes and she heads for her room too.

Chloe joins him upstairs once she made sure Ella was okay and had drunk her water fully. She carefully opens the door, still not sure what to make of Lucifer’s reaction when she came back. She doesn’t know what to expect - to be honest - but she certainly didn’t plan on him distancing himself from her. She catches him, his back to her pulling his pyjama bottoms on. She walks over and puts her hand on his forearm. He jumps and almost jerks away from her touch. Chloe reaches for him again.

“Lucifer talk to me, please.”

“What is left to say, Detective?” He looks at her and she can see his hurt. “You saw who I really am and couldn’t handle it, just like everyone else.” His voice is full of pain.

“That’s not true.”

He smirks as he recalls her leaving the room only a couple of hours ago. “So this won’t bother you then,” he replies, burnt flesh showing again. Except for this time, he shows her not only his face but his upper body as well, to scare her away and to confirm his fears.

Despite her best effort, she still moves back from him as she sees his scars and burns. 

“Just what I thought,” he says as he switches back to his glamoured form. 

He slips into bed, his back to her, signalling the end of the conversation.

Chloe understands the message loud and clear and decides to not push the issue any further. She prepares herself for bed. She gets under the covers, one last look at him before she turns around, the tiniest hope that this could change for the better in the days to come. At least despite what happened, he still accepted to share the same room - and bed - with her.

Strangely enough, Chloe’s night was very peaceful. Moreover, at some point during her sleep, she made her way to his side of the bed and managed to snuggle beside him. As the Devil wakes up and feels her warm body against his, he needs to double-check his mind isn’t dreaming again. When he’s confident that she’s really there, he doesn’t have the heart to wake her, nor to move away from her. His inside battle must have somehow triggered something in the Detective’s mind, because she slowly wakes up as well, taking in her surroundings.

As Chloe sees his big brown eyes staring back at her, full of tenderness, she fully realises that Linda was right when she told her the way to accept him fully was simple. And right now, all she wants is him, no matter which one of his faces he wears. She stares a bit longer into his eyes, trying to figure out what was going through his head as his face remains unreadable. She can see the tenderness from earlier, but also pain, doubt, and a flash of hunger, as she licks her lips and his eyes drop to her mouth. She smiles at him.

“Good morning,” she says, trying to get him to stop thinking.

She comes closer to him, silently telling him that she didn’t change her mind overnight and that she is still here, despite all that happened. Of course, she has a zillion questions to ask, but there would be time later for this. Right now, the most important thing is to make him understand that she wasn’t afraid anymore. She moves carefully and feels him stiffen as she comes closer. However, he doesn’t pull away - yet - almost as if he were afraid to break the moment. She presses her lips to his cheek, softly at first before following his jawline until she reaches his lips. Lucifer remains immobile. Her first kiss is light at first, barely touching, but when she understands he isn’t going to pull away, she presses with more force onto his lips. She feels him respond to her after a couple of seconds. Her free hand follows his toned abs and torso until it rests on his neck to pull him closer to her. Lucifer brings his hands to rest on her lower back to pull her flush against his body. But just as suddenly as it started, it stops and Lucifer moves away. The Detective looks back at him, wondering what happened and she barely has the time to see his eyes flash red before he closes them and turns away from her. When he finally looks back, his pupils are back to their usual colour and his typical Lucifer smile is back on.

“I…,” he starts, trying to figure out how Chloe could possibly still be here and fully sane. “We should get up, it’s,” he looks at his phone, “almost 8:30. And we have a case to solve.”

He stands without waiting for Chloe’s reply and heads for the bathroom to get ready. Chloe lets out a very frustrated sigh as she faces one of her most serious cases of blueterus, and they had only made out once last night and kissed for a couple of minutes this morning. “ _Is this how he felt each time I teased him?_ ” she quickly wonders. She grabs a pillow and groans into it as she decides to get her head out of the gutter and get up. She heads downstairs to get some coffee while Lucifer finishes his morning routine. She finds Ella is already up and reading a file.

“Hey,” she greets the brunette. “How are you feeling? You were pretty done last night.”

“Hey,” Ella looks at her coffee mug. “Yeah, sorry about that by the way, and thank you for the glass of water and aspirin on my nightstand.”

“We’ve all been there, right?” she jokes.

“Indeed,” she looks a bit ashamed. “I didn’t interrupt anything last night, did I? Are you and Lucifer alright? I don’t remember much but he seemed a bit off.”

“Hum, hum,” Chloe replies, non-committal.

“Decker, what happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, spill it!” Ella says. “You know I’m going to find out anyway.”

Chloe turns her head to the stairs to check for Lucifer before she starts talking again, almost glad Ella brought it up because she needed to share her thoughts with someone, and given Linda already slept with Lucifer, she didn’t feel like the therapist was the best option for this, although, she could have been since she had already… Chloe slaps herself mentally to focus.

“Promise not to freak out,” she first says, but Ella’s smile says all she needs to know. “Yesterday, Lucifer and I made out in the kitchen after you left, but it didn’t go any further. He had a phone call to make.” 

“A phone call?” Ella asks, not believing Lucifer would ever let go of Chloe for a freaking phone call.

“Yes. It was an important one,” Chloe says. “But anyway, this morning we kinda headed in the same direction but he stopped it, again.” Chloe pauses for a second as she watches Ella’s smile go even wider. “Each time it gets the tiniest bit intense, he pulls away.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same Lucifer and not some weird alien copy of him? The same Lucifer who has been set on getting you into his bed ever since I’ve known him?”

“Yes, I’m talking about the same one, which is why I’m at loss.” Chloe drums her fingers on the counter. “I can clearly see he wants to but, it’s like each time he builds this impenetrable wall around him and I can’t get through.” She checks the stairs again. “How do I get him to let me in, to make him understand that I accept who he is?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about in that last part, because he is Lucifer, and I have never seen him doubt himself. Although he does have layers.” Ella winks at Chloe. “From what you told me, and what I’ve seen, he is totally into you.” She comes closer to Chloe. “So all you need to do is to turn on the Decker charms,” she pauses, but when Chloe doesn’t reply, she continues, “seduce him.”

“I understood that part, Ella,” Chloe confirms. “But how do you seduce someone who’s had aeons of experience, seen it all AND slept with God knows how many women and men?”

“Come on Chloe, you could be wearing a biohazard suit that he would still find you attractive.”

“Yet, he walked away, twice,” She answers.

“He has the hots for you, Chloe, trust me on this.” Ella comes a bit closer to Chloe. “If he doesn’t want to make the first move, then you gotta take the lead.”

“Talking about anyone I know, Miss Lopez?” Lucifer interrupts before Chloe can say anything.

“Just sharing our nights,” Ella quickly replies.

“Very well,” he simply acknowledges, not sure how much of _their_ night Chloe shared. “Anyone want a cup of coffee?” he asks to avoid an awkward silence. 

To his utter surprise, his diversion works and the rest of their breakfast is rather enjoyable, the three of them back into known territories, Ella acting as the perfect buffer for the tension between them. About an hour later a knock on the door breaks their conversation.

“I’ll get it,” Lucifer says as he stands up. He faces Jet as he opens the door.

“Ellaine, I believe this is for you.”

“Jet, Hi!” Ella says as she joins Lucifer. “What are you doing here? I thought we were supposed to meet the rest of the Circle later on.”

“Yeah,” Jet starts, “they kinda moved the meeting earlier today, like in thirty minutes. They usually do that for security measures to avoid anyone setting up plans to discover them.”

“Okay.” She turns to Chloe and Lucifer. “This is Jet, we met at the party and as it turns he works for…”

“Jet and I met last night. He was looking for you but since you were at the party, he thought,” “ _he would hit on the Detective,”_ Lucifer adds in his mind, not to fond of that specific moment. “Never mind,” he finally says. He looks at Jet in a distrustful way. “Anyway, nice of you to drop by. Bye Nerdy Boy!” Lucifer adds as he closes the door to Jet’s face.

“Dude! What the Hell is wrong with you!” Ella tells Lucifer. “Jet is my golden ticket to the Circle.” She looks at Chloe. “I’ll meet you back here after lunch. In the meantime, why don’t you go snoop around some more?”

“Alright,” Chloe says. “Be careful and update us regularly.”

“I will,” Ella confirms before she reopens the door.

“Sorry about my godfather, he can be a bit too much sometimes, but he’s nice.”

“Come on let’s go, they’re waiting for us,” Jet simply says, looking at Lucifer one last time.

Once the door closes, Chloe walks away from Lucifer, Ella’s words still ringing in her ears. She clears her throat. Lucifer turns to her.

“Well, I guess I better go and get dressed if we plan to sneak around this neighbourhood,” she says, her fingers opening the lace that held her pyjama bottoms in place on her hips.

Lucifer’s eyes are almost immediately glued on her fingers but he doesn’t move.

“Good idea,” he says after a few seconds of staring. “I’ll be here, rereading things while you get ready.”

Chloe rolls her eyes at his unexpected behaviour. Never in a million years did she think that she would be the one to seduce him. But now that she’d tasted the Devil, she didn’t want to go back, she wanted more, and not only from a physical point of view, she also wanted the emotional intimacy with him. But she figured that Lucifer being Lucifer, it would be easier to make him understand what she meant if she lets her actions do the talking and uses a language he is already familiar with - rather than try and talk his ears off when he isn’t willing to listen to her. She smiles as a plan forms in her mind and as she knows she is about to begin a very fun game, with a very sexy player. 

She picks her clothes for the day with great care, her plan in mind. She settles for the specific sundress he showed her the day before. 

She stops for a moment as she recalls it had only been a day since she started this sting and she chuckles at how fast things evolved - how she had changed - even though she kinda always knew that once she jumped in, she’d never want to get out. 

Before she fully settles on the dress she put aside, she swifts through the rest of her clothes and hesitates for a moment with her usual jeans and shirt as she somehow still doubts herself. She finally picks the casual red and white sundress with ethnic patterns. As she looks at her in the bathroom wall mirror, she realises Lucifer picked indeed a dress that highlighted her assets very well. She decides to let her hair partly free, instead of her usual ponytail, and finishes the outfit with a pair of low heels sandals and a small handbag.

As she walks down the stairs, she doesn’t miss Lucifer’s gaze on her as he takes in the tiny straps on her shoulder and the hem of the dress, that lands just a couple of inches above her knee. The fabric is light and slightly transparent, which reveals her long legs and underwear lines but still leaves a lot to the imagination. Lucifer doesn’t say anything and reluctantly moves his eyes away from her. He grabs his jacket.

“Shall we go snoop, Darling?” he asks, back into his character in a blink.

“Yes,” Chloe replies.

They walk around for about an hour or so. Chloe takes this opportunity to strengthen the map she built of their surroundings the day before. She’s happy to notice that she remembers a lot from their first walk. To her surprise, they talk quite a lot, about everything and nothing at the same time, almost like two old friends. Chloe hesitates a couple of times to ask him some of the questions that formed in her mind, but she figures it might be still a bit early and she didn’t want to ruin the good mood that had settled between them. There would be other times to ask him about his origins and all that this included. As they near the end of their exploration - for now - Chloe realises she got thirsty along the way. She sees the common dining/entertainment building right at the corner, as they have about thirty to forty minutes before they reach their house. She swiftly turns around and heads there. Lucifer is surprised by her sudden change of direction.

“Is everything alright?” he asks as he follows her into the glass building. 

“Yes.” She looks around the area and finally heads to the kitchen corner. “I just got thirsty and thought I would grab a drink quickly here before we head back.”

Given the time, the place is empty but may get crowded later on as lunchtime draws closer. Lucifer leans on the wall near the main pillar of the room, his stance fully relaxed, one hand in his pocket, an involuntary cocky grin on his face, or is Chloe just imagining things? Chloe opens the handbag she took with her.

“Shit,” she exclaims. “I forgot to take my purse with me.”

“What would you do without me, I wonder,” he jokes as he reaches for his other pocket to get his cash.

However, his joke doesn’t earn him the expected eye-roll from the Detective. Instead, she walks towards him, eyes following his arm from shoulder to the hem of his pocket.

“What would I do without you indeed,” she replies, as her hand dips in his pocket to reach for the money, taking a detour by his inner thigh. “But if you lend me the needed dollar, I’m sure I can repay you, somehow,” she adds, her eyes glued to his darkened pupils, lips turning into a sultry smile.

Lucifer doesn’t look away from her, nor does he move as he feels her hand purposefully gliding along his thigh in his pocket. His brain goes into overdrive as he replays all what happened before this moment. It seems that despite all that she had seen, she wanted him for real. If there is one thing the Devil knows, it’s desire, and he now realises that she not only wants him, but is also seducing him. 

“Detect…,” he catches himself, part of his brain somehow still aware they are supposed to be a couple. “Darling.”

“Yes?” she asks innocently.

“What are you doing?”

“Just getting some money to get some water. I am rather _thirsty_ ,” she replies, fully aware of her double meaning.

“Are you now?” he banters, self doubt giving way for his usual flirty Devil. “You’re aware you’re playing with fire, Darling?”

“Am I?” She comes so close to him that Lucifer can almost feel the heat of her skin through her light dress. “What happens if I get burnt then?” 

Lucifer doesn’t reply but finally gives into his desire after having restrained himself for so long - according to his devilish scale. He crashes his lips to hers, and for the third time in less than a full day, they find themselves making out like two highschool kids. Lucifer’s hands easily find their way to her butt and he lifts her until she sits on the counter, much like the night before. His lips trail along her neck and she pushes his jacket off to have some room to work on his buttons. His hands slip under her dress and rest at the hem of her underwear. Chloe moans as she feels his fingers so close to where she wants him, both completely lost in each other and forgetting their surroundings.

Somewhere in Chloe’s mind the thought of how she went from resisting him for months to wanting to feel him against her this much pops up again but is quickly pushed back into her subconscious for later perusing. She feels his hands grip her hips until he stills completely. She can hear his intake of breath but before she can say anything, a voice interrupts them.

“Can you please get a room?” the angry voice says. “This is supposed to be a public area.”

Chloe blushes slightly but still, to her surprise, she doesn’t push Lucifer away. “How about we get back to the house to continue our discussion?” she whispers.

Lucifer swallows hard and smiles. “After you, Love,” he answers and reluctantly lets her go as he helps her to her feet before he picks up his jacket from the floor. This new side of the Detective is very interesting, now all he has to do is to get himself back in check and let his experience take over.

Chloe avoids their intruder’s eyes on her way out, still a bit flushed at being caught. Lucifer follows her quickly, a weird feeling as he passes the techie but too caught up in his head to give it any further thought for now. As they both walk in silence for a good part of the way towards their temporary place, Chloe grabs Lucifer’s arm again before he can build his walls back up. He stops walking and turns to the Detective.

“What’s happening, Lucifer?” she asks, eyes soft.

“Nothing. We just got interrupted. I guess I just feel a bit… frustrated,” he finishes.

“ _You and me both,_ ” Chloe mentally adds. “I’m not talking about this moment,” she finally decides to answer. “I’m talking about why you pull away or freak out each time we get too close.”

“I…,” he starts.

“And remember, you don’t lie.” She notices he avoids her gaze. “You clearly want this as much as I do, so what’s the issue?” She pauses, as her doubts resurface. “Is it me? Something I did?” she asks for the second time. “Because if it is, then you can tell me, I’m a big girl,” she continues when he doesn’t reply. “I mean you literally have aeons of experience, am I not enough for you?” she continues, as her doubts get the better of her well-laid plan to seduce him.

“It’s not you.” He quickly replies. “Believe me when I say that all my conquests don’t hold a candle to what we just did. And we kept our clothes on, so that’s saying something.”

“Then what is it!” she requests, her tone tender. “Talk to me Lucifer.”

He clears his throat. “Each time we’ve been,” he pauses and looks for the right word, “close, my _other_ self tries to break through and I’m not sure I can keep it under control.” He continues to walk while he talks to her. “I’m not sure, but I don’t want you to see it again, especially in this setting.” He looks at her. “I may have a lot of experience, but this has never happened to me before. I mean, I’m Lucifer Morningstar, Master of Desires, and with you, it seems like all is brand new and different. I feel like Lucifer Morningstar, Apprentice of whatever this is,” he adds, a bit frustrated both from what happened and from his lacking grasp over the situation. He sees a weird look in her eyes. “It’s the good kind of different, but still new, and I don’t want to” “ _screw this up before it even started,_ ” he adds in his head before he continues, “show you more than you should have to see,” he finishes.

“I’m not going to lie, it might be a bit weird if your Devil side popped out during _this_ specific moment,” she quickly continues as she sees Lucifer starts to pull away. “ _But_ it’s okay if it does. I’m not scared.” She smiles. “To be completely honest, I don’t think I ever was, even after the first time I saw you in this form. I’ve known you for too long to think you’d be just the Evil they say you are. I think I just wasn’t ready to accept it all, because it is a lot to take in, and I needed space to clear my head and process it all.” She squeezes his hand. “Even if you don’t want to admit it, this is part of who you are, and what kind of partner would I be if I only accepted a couple of layers, right?”

He chuckles at her reference to his onion joke. “So you’re sure you’re not afraid?”

“Nope,” she answers.

Lucifer looks like he still doubts her. Chloe decides to challenge him a bit. She looks around before she replies.

“Show me again.” However her tone isn’t harsh, but filled with care. When he doesn’t change, she smiles at him again. “And I have to give credit to Linda. She helped me a lot, though. You were right to trust her. Although I can’t believe she knew and never told me,” she says.

“Would you have believed her?”

“Probably not,” she admits as they reach the door. She turns to him once they’re inside. “But to be totally honest, the couple of times I’ve seen your red eyes, I found them hot,” she says, aware of her bad pun, but still trying to lighten the mood after their conversation. “But if you want to take it slow until you can get it back under control because it makes you uncomfortable, I can wait.” She adds, in earnest. “I mean I have made you wait long enough, it’d be very bad mannered of me to..”

He stops her rambling and kisses her fiercely as all she had said to him in the last minutes sink in. He pins her against the closed door, hands roaming her upper body and thighs. Chloe smiles under his lips.

“So no waiting then?” she whispers.

He lets go of her lips and simply smiles at her, pupils fully blown by his pent-up desire. He leads her slowly towards the couch. Chloe turns them over at the last minute, and reverses the control for now, their lips still on each other as if glued. She straddles his hips, dress riding up her thighs to stop just below her ass. She grinds down on him, his arousal abundantly clear underneath her. Lucifer can’t help the groan escaping his throat as he feels her wanting and hot against him. Chloe feels the Devil relax under her spell the more it continues, although still holding back somehow. She first removes his jacket and sends it flying somewhere in the living room behind her, then slowly opens his shirt, one button after the other, with intent. Lucifer slips his hands under her dress until they rest on her hips. Each time a button goes off, Chloe drops a kiss on his skin, enjoying the discovery of his body. 

She soon finds herself kneeling between his legs as the last button pops open. She smiles and slowly comes back up, fingers trailing his sides and torso as Lucifer throws his shirt somewhere near his jacket. To his disappointment, Chloe stands up and takes the slightest step away from him. He subconsciously checks his face with his hands to see if it slipped through without his knowledge, but he remains unchanged. Chloe quickly reassures him and comes close to his ear.

“Why don’t we take this upstairs?” she whispers as she takes his hand. Lucifer stands up almost as if hypnotised by her. She lets go of his fingers and walks towards their apartment She pushes the straps of her dress down her shoulders. In a blink, and faster than humanly possible, Lucifer is at his lover’s side and scoops her up in his arms to walk them upstairs, the sundress forgotten in the middle of the steps. Chloe wraps her legs around his hips, more out of reflex than to support herself, as he already proved his strength many times over. The climb up the stairs would have been a challenge for anyone else but the Devil. He kicks the door open as they reach their private space and closes it shut with his foot, his hands - and lips - never leaving Chloe. He drops the blonde woman with practised ease on the bed, his tall frame towering over her. Chloe takes Lucifer by surprise and flips him over so that she’s now on top of him. She moves her hands around his body and memorises him. Once she’s content with her upper exploration, she slowly unclips his belt buckle, fingers carefully avoiding his bulge. He twitches slightly and chuckles.

“I see you like to be on top, not that I’m surprised. You’ve always been so bossy at work,” he says, his breath a bit heavier now, but more than happy to let her take the lead.

“Well, to be honest, it’s not every day you get to top the Devil himself,” she banters, fingers barely grazing over his erection as she slowly drags the zipper down.

Lucifer helps her and lifts his hips off the bed as she drags the rest of his suit down, breath now hot on him on her way up. He takes in a sharp breath as he sees her eyes.

“Incredible,” he softly says.

“My thoughts exactly,” she whispers, as she comes back to his side, to catch his lips again in a languorous kiss, all shyness dropped with her dress along the way. He responds to her immediately, tongues dancing with each other as Lucifer gets rid of her bra easily. He turns her over so she’s now under him, and takes a bit of control back. 

Chloe lets out a sigh as he finally reaches for her breasts. As it appears, the Devil also likes to be in control, but Chloe is too raptured in her pleasure to share this thought for now. Her brain stores it somewhere for later use. She feels Lucifer’s lips trail down her neck, before he rests on her pulse point, leaving the faintest trace of a hickey there , then he moves down to replace his fingers on her nipple. He lingers there for a moment, nibbling at her very sensitive pebble, before he switches to the other one to give it the same treatment. Chloe voices her delight a bit louder this time and Lucifer smiles against her skin. He may have been out of his element for a while, but it is like riding a bike and now that he got back on it, he is the best he can be. Just like she did, he continues the discovery of her skin. He traces patterns around her stomach and belly button, his tongue hot against her already flushed skin. He pauses at the hem of her panties, just in case. But when she simply tangles her fingers in his hair, he slowly pulls them down her slim legs until he drops an almost chaste kiss on the top of her left foot as he finally removes the undesired garment for good. 

He makes his way back up, feather-light kisses that set her skin on fire as he makes a mental map of every single reaction he gets from her. He spends some time on her inner thighs, always inching closer, and yet not enough. Chloe tries to guide him to where she now needs him, more than wants him. But he simply smiles and avoids her mound to ever so lightly bite at her hip bone instead. Chloe’s sighs and moans are now a lot louder and he can even make out a small frustrated groan as he keeps avoiding her most sensitive area. When he takes too long for her taste, she stirs him - not so gently now - to where she craves more friction and contact. Lucifer relocates one of his hands to her right breast - which from his first tests seemed to be the most responsive one - while his other comes to rest on her lower stomach to keep her grounded on the bed.

“Lucifer, please…,” she finally pleads when it gets too much - or in this case - too little.

Chloe can feel his content smile on her skin but is too far gone to make him pay for his cockiness now. He lingers a bit right above her centre, while his index teases her just the slightest. He feels a surge of pride as he feels her excitement at the tip of his finger. He waits for a couple more seconds before he can’t resist the pull of her heat anymore, and he finally tastes her for the first time. His movements are a bit tentative at first until he finds out what she likes most. Compared to other women who handed him their cue points on a platter, he actually needed to guess for a bit before he found the actual spot that makes her lose it - even more than she already had. 

As he finds just the right pressure on her clit, Chloe lets out a louder moan. He chuckles, his chest would have puffed out had he been standing instead of being on his knees. Chloe tugs at his hair as she feels his small laugh but all is soon drowned into another one of her moans. He drops the hand that plays with her nipple as he feels her climb higher and higher. He slowly parts her lips to push his middle finger in, slowly at first, but as he feels Chloe melting under his attention, he can’t help but speed up his tongue lapping and nibbling at her clit to prolong her delight. Her hips arch off the bed but his forearm maintains her against it. He swiftly adds a second digit and keeps her walking the plank for a couple of minutes. Part of him considers teasing her and denying her a bit longer, but the noises she now makes, as well her fists grabbing the sheet and her body thrashing against him convince him to push her over the edge.

He realises that she’s about as desperate as he is. He rubs a couple more times _that_ spot on her inner walls and applies just the tiniest bit more pressure on her clit and Chloe free falls, bucking her hips against his lips as he helps her ride her orgasm. Once she stills he finally lets go of her body and lets her come back to her senses. He briefly wipes his face on the sheet before he finally levels with her face and kisses her deeply. Chloe responds to him immediately, already feeling the flame he lit in her reignited by a simple kiss. She lays on her back, boneless as he lets go of her, fingers lazily drawing various patterns on her lower stomach.

“Lucifer, that was…”

“Incredible?” he completes, amazed himself, but also now that his brain is not fully concentrated on his Detective, feeling his temporary set aside desire for her, come back full force.

“Yeah, it was.” She takes in his grin and darkened eyes. “Stop being so cocky!” she jokes.

“You have no idea, Love,” he replies.

Before he can continue, and start his _I-told-you-so_ monologue about how good he is, she pushes him back on the bed, fingers pressing down on his cock, teasing him. He inhales sharply. She bites his earlobe and lets a trail of open-mouthed kisses down his throat.

“How about I wipe that cocky grin off your face.” She slowly moves her hand up and down his length over his briefs. “You’re not the only one with skills,” she teases as the Devil closes his eyes at the very needed friction.

He doesn’t reply in words to her question but simply groans. Chloe takes this as a good sign and continues her way along his body, much as he did hers. Once she decides she’s had enough fun, she finally pays more attention to his most neglected area so far and slowly brings the last barrier of clothing down his legs. Lucifer’s grin falters as he feels her hot breath nearer and nearer, his body rising off the bed in an attempt to seek her out. But she moves back and whispers to him as she grips his erection to continue her up and down movement, only this time faster and more firmly as she did before. “Told you I’d wipe it off,” she says before she comes back down and takes him in-between her lips.

As Lucifer feels her around him, his eyes shoot open and he locks his gaze with her, a faint red glow visible behind his pupils. She tries a few different speeds and pressure levels until Lucifer tightens his fingers in her hair, then she knows she found the perfect one. Her hand matches her rhythm and completes the motion of her mouth. Her second hand scratches him on his chest, paying special care to his nipples in turn, which he seems to enjoy very much. When she brings her hand down to play with his balls, she feels his stomach flinch as the pleasure builds within him. The Devil - to his surprise - is now rendered almost speechless by a simple - no matter how well conducted - blowjob, and this never happened before, and certainly not over such a short time. He can feel himself nearing his downfall, and uses his last brain cells at his disposal to warn the siren between his legs about it. He slightly pulls at her hair and groans, but Chloe gets the message. She stops for a moment, a whimper escapes his lips at the loss of contact, she takes him in again with increased speed, one of her hands applies pressure on his perineum as he climbs higher and higher. As she continues to push him towards the edge, she resists the urge to bring the hand wrapped around his cock to touch herself as she feels a new wave of pleasure the more his increases. Chloe can feel his stomach contracts more and more and his breathing is now ragged. The only sounds coming out of his mouth are deep moans as he lets go of everything. He finally comes undone under her ministrations, for the first time in ages, face flushed, breath battered. 

Chloe’s grin probably mirrors the one he had minutes ago. As she comes up to his face, she faintly sees his eyes regain their natural brown, but it doesn’t seem like his skin changed though. He looks back at her and his head falls back on the mattress as he enjoys his post-orgasm state. After a short while, he smiles.

“Feel free to wipe any grin off my face any time, Darling,” he jokes. His eyes turn dark as Chloe slightly slaps him on his chest for his bad joke. “Ready for round two?”

“Already?” she answers, truly surprised, but not as much as when she feels him growing hard again against her thigh.

“Lucky for you, it seems that my mortality around you doesn’t affect my devilish stamina.” He nips her on her pulse point and Chloe moans.

She smiles cheekily at him. “Prove it,” she challenges him. “So far I haven’t seen anything _that_ extraordinary.”

Her words have the expected effects on the Devil and a wolfish grin comes on his face. “Is that so, Detective?” he replies, using her title on purpose. “Well, it will be my pleasure to prove you wrong,” he finishes as he grabs a condom, not fully sure about the extent of his mortality around her. 

He entertains the idea to let her wait a bit more and teases her for a bit, but as he feels her pushing against him, he decides to skip this for now. He settles between her legs, eyes burning this moment as he slowly - and finally - enters her. He stills for a bit and lets her adjust to him. Despite her evident eagerness, he still is way above average. When he feels her relax around him he moves gently at first, revelling in the sensation, this moment their only concern for now.

“Incredible,” he repeats for the second time tonight, as he feels a completion that he hasn’t felt in a very long time - if never - almost as if he were finally home, and not only because of their physical union.

Lucifer reflexively picks up speed as he lets his brain switch off and his body take over, only to feel everything. Chloe closes her eyes as the pleasure ignites within her all the way again. She grips her lover’s ass with one hand as the pace increases, not looking to switch their position for now, too lost in the moment. Her other hand rests above her head, entwined with Lucifer’s fingers. They’d have plenty of times later on to explore her deepest fantasies. He feels her nearing her second orgasm, as he is not too far either. He somehow feels her still holding on to something to prevent her complete abandon to pleasure. He lets go of her hand above her head to bring it down to her clit as the other one supports his body. He applies the same rhythm as his hips. As he feels her almost there, he comes close to her ear and wipers, his voice thick with lust.

“Let go, Love,” he simply says. 

This propels Chloe into her second release, even more powerful than the first one she had less than an hour ago. She arches into him, hand gripped tight around his ass cheek as her other hand tries to push him into her as deep as she can. Lucifer keeps thrusting while she rides the most powerful orgasm she has ever experienced so far. Just as her’s subsides, his hits hard as he sees Chloe’s O-face, trembling body and complete rapture beneath him. Chloe just has the time to open her eyes to see his face contract then relax completely, eyes full of hellish flames, as he chases his orgasm, hips pushing deep a couple more times, a sexy growl - resembling her name - on his lips. He comes down to lie beside her, both of them spent and happy. Chloe cuddles up to him, closing her eyes for a few moments, simply to enjoy the afterglow and Lucifer follows her soon after. He hears a faint chuckle from her chest.

“What?” he asks, voice deep.

“Nothing,” she replies, still smiling,

“Come on,” he looks at her. “Tell me what it is.”

“What it is,” Chloe repeats.

He chuckles and tickles her. ‘Very funny, _Detective_ ,” he jokes. “Seriously though, what is it.”

She hesitates for a moment. “It was different than I imagined.”

Lucifer grins and drops kisses along her throat, desire already reborn again. “Do tell, Love.”

“I don’t know,” she starts, her shyness creeps up slightly. “It WAS incredible,” she pauses, not sure what to say next. “Somehow I imagined it less vanilla, maybe with a piano.” She looks away from him.

The Devil chuckles, his voice drops an octave, and as sultry as it can get. “Trust me, Darling, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to explore this less vanilla side of you. This was the first of many, many, many pleasurable moments to come. And I can’t wait to hear more about your piano fantasy,” he finishes, his hands following the curve of her stomach to test her wetness. He finds her very sensitive clit and applies just the lightest pressure there. He comes close to her ear. “Round three?” he asks.

Chloe doesn’t reply but snakes her hand around his arousal. Suddenly they hear Ella’s voice coming from downstairs. She sounds panicked and this flashes them back to reality. They quickly get dressed, Chloe grabs her dress from the previous day that lay on the nearby chair, while Lucifer picks up the trousers he discarded in the room earlier - for obvious reasons - and a purple shirt from his closet. They hurry down the stairs, Lucifer finishing to close his shirt as they arrive in the kitchen where Ella awaits them.

“What the Hell were you doing Guys? I tried calling you both for about ten times!” Ella starts.

“We were…” Chloe stops, not sure what to say, without lying to her friend and not revealing too much at the same time.

Then Ella puts the pieces together as she takes in Lucifer’s untucked shirt - which happens like never - Chloe’s dress at the bottom of the stairs, and his _other_ shirt and jacket by the couch. She looks at Lucifer and Chloe, and her eyes catch Lucifer’s very tight-fitting pants. She quickly relocates her eyes to Chloe. Her smile could have lit the room.

“OMG!” she exclaims. “Did you guys finally did it? Were you like _tchika tchika_ again?” she asks.

None of them replies to her questions, but Lucifer’s smug smile and Chloe’s blush give Ella all the necessary confirmation she needs. Ella almost giggles.

“I’m so happy for you!”

Chloe looks away from Ella for a second then back at Lucifer. They lock eyes for a moment before Chloe clears her throat.

“So what happened that had you worked up before?” Chloe asks.

Ella comes down from her rollercoaster and her face becomes serious again. “Jet’s dead.”

“Bugger,” Lucifer huffs, as he knows this was going to complicate their case a lot, as it would mean the LAPD - and most probably Detective Douche - would take on the case, as Chloe is currently unavailable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess they finally did it ^^. Does this mean the tension is going to go down, certainly not XD.
> 
> Once again thank you for all your comment, feedback, likes, kudos and all. I'm thrilled each time!
> 
> And also a BIG thank you to ManuHerz79 for betaing (if this a word ;)) and helping me <3.
> 
> Hope you have fun.


	5. CHAPTER 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the new chapter :).  
> Huge thanks to ManuHerz79 for the betaing :)

***   
Previously in  **One Hell of a Sting** :   
“ _ Ella comes down from her rollercoaster and her face becomes serious again. “Jet’s dead.” _

_ “Bugger,” Lucifer huffs, as he knows this was going to complicate their case a lot, as it would mean the LAPD - and most probably Detective Douche - would take on the case, as Chloe is currently unavailable. _ ”   
***

CHAPTER 5 

Chloe stops for a moment until the full blast of the news - or rather bomb - Ella shared sinks in.

“What do you mean?” she starts, more out of reflex than anything. “I mean, what happened? Are you okay?” she immediately adds as concern for her friend takes over.

“I’m fine,” Ella starts. “I wasn’t with him when it happened,” “ _ and maybe I could have prevented it,” _ she adds in her mind. “I was supposed to meet him after my session near the pool to chat and check what our next steps would be. I waited for him for a couple of hours, calling and checking around, but when I couldn’t find him, I decided to check his place, just in case,” she pauses, gathering her thoughts. “When I arrived, the front door of his apartment was open, though I could see no sign of forced entry,” she adds, her forensic reflexes kicking in now - both as a way to protect herself and give as many elements to Chloe as she could. “I announced myself a couple of times before I walked in, just to make my presence known in case anyone was still present. When I heard no sounds of a window closing or footsteps, I walked in, disrupting the place as little as I could.” She looks away from Chloe, before she refocuses her attention. “I found him dead in his room, by his computer set up. I didn’t touch anything to keep the crime scene as preserved as possible for the guys later. Livor mortis was not yet visible, so death happened between twenty minutes and two hours before I got there.”

“Here.” Chloe hands her a glass of water so the brunette can take a break and a breath.

“Thanks,” Ella quickly acknowledges before she continues. “So after I found Jet, I closed the apartment door and tried to call you several times, but when you didn’t pick up, I called Dan to let him know and I hurried here. I was afraid something might have happened to you as well.” She seems to relax visibly now that she got it off of her chest and didn’t have to bear this alone anymore. “But you guys were otherwise busy,” she winks, her tone still a bit worried, but also playful. “Dan told me he should be here soon, he said he would show up to the crime scene first then, heading here to start to question potential witnesses. I’ve told him about the sting in a nutshell, but wasn’t really at the top of my game to tell him more.”

“It’s okay, Ella,” Chloe quickly reassures her. “Why don’t you go sit down for a bit. What matters is that you didn’t get hurt. We’ll figure the rest out as Dan arrives,” Chloe finishes, not really able to do anything without risking their cover, at least until Dan gets here.

Then she realises her clothes are still on the floor, and she’d rather avoid Dan asking questions about this. She starts to pick them up, as Ella heads for her room to rest a bit. She can’t help but replay the moment as she picks her dress from the stairs and smiles. Lucifer sees it and grins, probably thinking the same. She tosses him his shirt and jacket, as well as her dress.

“Instead of smirking, take them to our room,” she says, her tone light. “The last thing I need is for Dan to go all douchey about this,” she adds, barely above a whisper.

“I heard that!” Lucifer says from the top of the stairs.

Chloe ignores him, but grins. She walks to Ella’s room and knocks softly before she opens the door.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ella nods, but doesn’t reply. “I know you didn’t really know him for long, but he seemed like a nice guy.”

“He was,” the brunette simply says.

Chloe decides to try and focus her attention on something other than Jet for now. “How did the testing session go?”

Her distraction somehow works and Ella focuses once again. “Good I think.” She grabs a pillow from her bed. “I’m not sure from where they were watching, or who watched exactly, but he - or they - seemed convinced by my backstory and demonstration. I should have the final reply tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“Do you have any idea where you were led to?” Chloe asks, avoiding to mention Jet on purpose.

“Not sure. I had a blindfold for most of the way, but I remember we took some alley that I should be able to find, but I’m not entirely sure. It’s all a bit fuzzy.” Ella seems to think for a bit before she goes on. “They said they were very interested in my skills to read and adapt patterns, that this was exactly what they needed,” she finishes.

“It’s okay,” Chloe reassures her. “We’ll check this tomorrow once things have cooled down.” She takes in Ella’s worried stance. “You should rest a bit.” Chloe reiterates. “We’ll come to get you if anything changes.” Ella nods as Chloe leaves the room.

“How is Miss Lopez?” Lucifer asks as he sees Chloe walking towards him.

“A bit shaken up, but I think she’ll be alright,” the Detective says. “Although this one hit very close to home so she might need some time to process it all. I told her to rest a bit. We’ll see later.”

He nods before he continues. “Do you know if the LAPD has already arrived?”

“Not from what I understood, but I’ve sent a text to Dan to ask him to call me before he gets to the crime scene. I’d like to fill him in on the details myself, rather than the Lieutenant.” she sits down beside Lucifer, his arm going around her shoulders as she snuggles up to him - almost automatically. “I’m not sure what it is about him but I just don’t trust him. Olivia might have been set on using her position to advance her career, but at least she was reliable. Him, I’m not so sure.”

“You and me both, Darling.”

“Right,” she chuckles. “You mostly don’t like him because HE doesn’t like you.”

“And what’s not to like?” he jokes, as he looks at her, challenging her to contradict him.

She doesn’t and simply rolls her eyes. “Speaking of,” she starts. “About our new  _ situation _ , I think it would be best if we keep it just between us for now, at least until the case is solved, and things are a bit clearer.”

“Any regrets?” he can’t help but ask.

“No!” She kisses his cheek. “However, until we know where we stand, I don’t want people to get any ideas, and I want to talk to Dan before anyone else does,” she adds.

“Speaking of the Douche…” he says as Dan’s name appears on Chloe's phone on the coffee table. 

As Chloe picks the smartphone, Lucifer stands up and leaves her to go outside for a while.

“Lucifer… Wait,” Chloe says, but he doesn’t listen. She goes to follow him but Dan calls again. She finally picks up.

“Yeah Dan,” she answers, a tad more aggressive than intended.

“Hi,” Dan replies. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“No, I’m just tired,” Chloe dismisses his concern.

“Okay,” he agrees. “I’m at the gate, but I saw your text. What is it?”

“I wanted to fill you in about the sting and all. Has the Lieutenant already shared some intel?”

“Yeah,” Chloe can hear the bitterness in his voice, so she guesses the Lieutenant told him about her backstory with Lucifer. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Would it change anything?” Her tone is neutral.

“No, but it would have been nice to know my recent ex-wife is going undercover as a married couple with the man who thinks himself the Devil and has been trying to sleep with her for months.”

“ _ You have no idea... _ ” Chloe thinks before she replies to Dan. “Now is not the time, Dan,” she says to cut the discussion short.

“What other info did you gather on the case?” he replies, leaving this on the side as well - for now.

Chloe recaps all she found out from the beginning, as well as the layout of the campus she already mapped in her head, and Ella’s latest findings about the body. Once she’s done and Dan has all the cards in his hands to start the investigation without breaking their cover she hangs up and joins Lucifer outside. He’s looking at his phone as she sits beside him.

“Hey,” she simply says.

He looks up at her. “So how did your call with the Douche go?”

“Good,” Chloe simply states. “He was at the gate when he called so I figure he should be here in about twenty minutes. We agreed he would go to the crime scene first to get seen and then head here to start with the neighbourhood investigation. He’s fully updated on our cover and our latest findings.”

“Good,” he answers, non committal.

Chloe hesitates for a bit to bring up their previous conversation when Lucifer left to go outside, as he seems to be set on something else for now, but she feels that, despite his current mood, if she doesn’t clear the water now, this could typically be the thing that blows up in their faces at some point on a later date. She clears her throat to get his attention. He turns his head to her.

“About what I said earlier,” she starts. She gives him some time to reply or stop her, so when he doesn’t she continues. “I didn’t mean I was regretful or having second thoughts. I just meant that this is still very much new and I just want to be sure where we’re going before anyone else starts to put their nose into our private life, and believe me, they will.” She pauses to gauge his reply, but his face remains unreadable. “I  _ very much _ want to repeat what we did earlier today.” She casts him a rather sultry look as she finishes her statement. “And I know it’s not a one time thing, which is why I want to do this properly. We’re not the only ones involved. If we do this, there’s Trixie to think about. She’ll be thrilled about it, but I don’t want to give her false hopes. And I don’t need Dan to be all jealous and annoying over this during this sting, or to go and see the Lieutenant.” She smiles as she sees Lucifer relaxing a bit. “And given Dan’s reaction to us “pretending” to be a couple, it’s not going to be a fun conversation.”

“Can I be here to see his face, though?” Lucifer asks, his tone playful.

“If you behave, why not.” She winks at him. “Beside, to the outside world, we are supposed to be a couple anyway, and with Ella in the know, we should be safe within these walls and the neighbourhood.” She reaches for his lips. “I guess I’ll just have to stop pretending I’m immune to your charms.”

He closes the distance between them and she automatically responds to him, deepening the kiss, tongues dancing together, but not looking to overcome one another. Soon she finds herself straddling him on the deckchair, hands roaming his body as his start to lift up her dress. It takes all the remaining lucid part of her brain to stop him before she’s too far gone to care about anything else than his lips and fingers on her skin. She slightly moves away from him and stills her hands, as a whimper escapes her. She smirks as she sees him chase her lips as well.

“I should go freshen up before Dan arrives.” She stands up and looks back at him, eyes dark with her desire. “But you could join me?”

“Is that so, Love?” Lucifer chuckles as she nods. “As much as I want to take you up on your offer,” he continues, eyeing his erection. “I think you and I both know that if I join you in there, we will never be ready in twenty minutes.” He stands up and walks past her, but not before he stops to whisper in her ear, his voice dripping with lust, “but we will revisit this idea very soon, I give you my word.” He kisses her deeply one last time before he walks back into the house. “Look at me being the responsible one,” he jokes. “I’ll take the guest bathroom,” he finishes.

As agreed they both meet downstairs after they’ve freshened up. Lucifer took a detour to their room, lingering for a moment as he heard the shower running, almost giving into temptation, but finally settled for his usual three-pieces suit and the shirt he picked when Ella interrupted them. Chloe hesitated for a bit between keeping the dress she had on, but decided to take some light grey jeans, coupled with a red and blue check shirt and low boots.

Lucifer smiles as he sees her walking towards him. “So how do we proceed?” he asks.

Chloe can feel his eyes linger on her. “Well you could start by stopping to imagine me naked,” she scolds him, but her voice remains playful.

“No need to use my imagination now,” he counters, not the slightest bit ashamed to have ogled her.

“Then we wait for Dan to show up and treat us as he would any other suspect.”

Lucifer nods and looks towards Ella’s room. “Shall we wake Miss Lopez up?”

“I would let her rest for now,” Chloe says, a hint of worry in her voice. “I told her we would tell her if we needed her help, but for now we’re good I think.”

“Miss Lopez is stronger than she looks,” Lucifer adds, in an attempt to ease Chloe’s worry.

“I know, and she seemed okay, but I know from experience that this kind of case can hit hard, and with a delay. Under normal circumstances, she’d probably have been asked to step away from the case, but given the sting, it’s not possible yet.”

“She’ll be okay, in time,” Lucifer repeats, as he recalls how he felt as Delilah died by his side and how much he wanted revenge for her. “She has you to help her,” he finishes, sincere.

Chloe smiles, still unsure. Ella solves her dilemma and steps out of her room, still a bit sleepy. She joins them in the living room.

“Hey guys,” she greets them. “Has Dan arrived yet?”

“Not yet. Slept well?”

Ella nods as the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it,” Lucifer quickly says.

Ella takes this opportunity to come closer to Chloe. “Once you and I are alone, we need to have a talk. And you’ll better spill the beans,” Ella winks and looks towards Lucifer as he steps aside to let Dan in. 

Chloe doesn’t reply but Ella knows she won when she sees Chloe’s grin. Once the door closes, Chloe greets her ex-husband.

“Hey,” she starts. “So how does it look out there?”

“Hey,” Dan replies. “It’s a mayhem near the guy’s apartment,” he says, unaware of Ella’s relation to Jet. “Are you both okay?” he finishes as he looks towards Chloe and Ella.

Lucifer steps beside Chloe, the urge to reach for her almost irresistible. He keeps his hands in his pocket but still stands only a hair away from her. Chloe slightly leans into him, struggling as well to remain neutral.

“Yes, we are ALL fine,” she answers. “So what are the preliminary results from the M.E?”

“He said it looks accidental, but something doesn’t add up,” Dan starts. “He said cause of death was a cardiac arrest but he showed no sign of any heart disease.”

“That’s not possible,” Ella jumps in. “Jet was a semi-professional runner and did a complete check-up every six months. If he had any heart condition, it would have been impossible to practice running at such a high level.”

“How do you know this?” Dan asks. “Have you already done the background check on him after you found him?”

“No,” the brunette’s eyes drop to the floor for a second. “I spent an evening with him yesterday and we talked a lot. It seemed we had a lot of common interests.”

Dan realises his mistake from before and his lack of tact. “I’m sorry, Ella, I didn’t know…”

“It’s okay,” Ella reassures him. “What else did the M.E say?”

“He confirmed your first analysis regarding the time of death and given the first elements and the apparent heart failure, he thinks it might be electrocution. He said he would keep me updated once the autopsy is done, tox screen report included. I’ll let you know.” 

“Maybe his computer setup was tempered with?” Ella offers.

“Maybe,” Dan agrees. “In any case, the Lieutenant and I agreed that given the latest developments, you should have reinforced security.” He takes out a black box from his satchel and shows it to Chloe.

“What’s this?” Lucifer asks. “You do know Pandora’s box has already been opened, right?” he teases Dan.

“These,” Dan answers, “are the latest devices in terms of audio surveillance,” he opens the case. “These tech babies are to be placed in every room of this place to make sure you’re safe.”

Lucifer looks outraged at the thought of having microphones inside, and not just only in the private apartment. However, he remains rather calm, his huff the only sign of his mood.

“In every room?” Chloe repeats. 

“Yeah,” Dan confirms. “I mean I have five of them, and there are basically five distinct spaces. The apartment upstairs, the one downstairs, the kitchen, the living-room and the back of the house.”

Lucifer can’t keep his laugh this time. “And how do you think that microphones all over the place - and in our bedrooms - will guarantee our safety exactly?”

“You never know what might happen or who could break in,” Dan replies, not knowing what was going on, but not the least distrubed by Lucifer’s reaction. After all he once used a professional hitwoman to simply find a man who impersonated him a couple of times. Ever since this incident, he’d given up on trying to figure him out.

Chloe on her side, not in the least pleased by this new change in their sting, tries to find a reason to justify a refusal, but can’t find any. Lucifer replies to Dan.

“Are you insinuating that the Detective isn’t safe with me?”

“One can never know,” Dan answers, fully aware he now pushes Lucifer’s buttons, and not in a good way.

“This is preposterous!” Lucifer immediately replies.

Chloe puts her hand on his arm to bring him down. Her touch almost instantly calms him and she lingers longer than necessary, both enjoying the touch. This small gesture doesn’t go unnoticed by Dan, nor Ella. The forensic speaks before her colleague can say anything.

“I know the perfect place to hide the microphone.” She decidedly walks towards the stairs to move Dan’s mind away from Lucifer and Chloe. 

Ella opens the door as they all follow her. She smiles slightly as she sees clothes scattered around the room. Apparently they picked them from downstairs, but didn’t think to pick them up here. She stops at the desk, before the bedroom. She shows the corner closest to the door.

“If you place it here, you’ll get to hear what’s happening on the outside of the door, and avoid any parasite noises coming from the bedroom and/or the bathroom, like snoring for example.”

Dan frowns as he sees the  _ only  _ bed on the other side, but chooses to say nothing for now. Lucifer smiles, both at Dan’s silent question, and Ella’s suggestion.

“This is very smart from you, Miss Lopez,” Lucifer says, as Dan places the device up the wall.

Chloe doesn’t say anything, but her smile says plenty. Ella is indeed a very good wing-woman. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, one person knew about their relationship. Once Dan is done he makes a couple of tests.

“I guess this could work,” he says. “The equipment is very sensitive, and we’ll hear anything louder than snoring,” he finishes as he exits the room, Ella on his heels.

Chloe and Lucifer remain a bit behind. Lucifer takes the opportunity to grab Chloe’s waist and bring her back flush against his chest. He brings his lips to the shell of her ear.

“I guess we’ll have to be very quiet,” he starts. “Think you can manage, Detective?”

Chloe leans into his touch. “Can you?” she challenges him back, as she recalls his growls that were far from below a snore.

“We’ll see, Love,” Lucifer simply replies as he lets her go and walks past her to join Ella and Dan downstairs.

The three of them remain in the living-room as Dan finishes to set up the device in Ella’s room. As he closes the door, a letter slips under the door. Ella grabs it and looks at it, impressed by the design. It’s almost as if the letter had been taken out of the Harry Potter book. She carefully opens it and reads it aloud.

“ _ Estimated Contestant, _

_ A new spot just opened up in our Circle and we’re happy to confirm your new position amongst us. You’ve already met Zeta and you’ve successfully passed your test. Zeta being now bested - and not of any use to the Circle anymore - we decided to have him replaced by a better element. _

_ Zeta is dead, long live Zeta. _

_ Epsilon will contact you within twenty-four hour to have you settled in your new duties in regards to the Circle, and to inform you of our newest meeting place. _ ”

Ella slowly closes the letter and looks at Lucifer and Chloe worried. She searches for her words.

“You don’t actually think Jet is dead because I got in, do you?” she asks, more to try to reassure herself, but already knowing the answer to her question.

Lucifer and Chloe remain silent, not sure what to say, both shocked because of the content of the letter. Finally Chloe speaks.

“Ella, if you want out of this, we can manage to catch them otherwise,” she says, feeling the ping of guilt as she feels responsible for bringing her into all this.

The brunette considers for a moment the way out Chloe offered her, but finally decides to refuse it as the truth finally sinks in.

“No,” Ella hardens her face, resolve clear. “They need to pay for what they did to Jet, and they need to be stopped, whoever they are. I owe it to him,” she adds in a breath.

Dan finally comes back after the installation of the microphones is finished outside and in Ella’s room. He immediately feels the change in the room.

“What did I miss?” he asks, humour absent from his tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try a new format in the coming chapters, aka shorter chapters, but hopefully more frequent updates (about half the size) ;).
> 
> Let me know what you think about it :).
> 
> I feel like I'm repeating myself, but thank you for all of your comment, feeback, kudos and all! They do make my day!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it as the plot thickens a bit ;).


	6. CHAPTER 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the new chapter.  
> Sorry for the long time, the current lockdown in France has kinda stopped my muse for a moment, but now I'm back and full of ideas. I'll try to update soon :).  
> HUGE thanks to ManuHerz79 for the beta :).

***  
Previously in **One Hell of a Sting** :   
Mics have been installed and Jet’s dead…   
***

After the group fills Dan in on what had happened while he was out playing sound technician, he becomes worried but decides - after many arguing - to continue his interrogation of the neighbourhood as planned to keep up appearances for this case. Once Lucifer is certain Dan is far away enough, he turns towards Ella.

“So, Miss Lopez, how long do you need to deactivate the little buggers? I mean...”

Chloe jumps in before neither Ella nor Lucifer can speak. “We can’t turn them off.” Her tone is final.

“But…,” yet Lucifer tries.

“No buts,” Chloe replies. However, she feels the need to justify her refusal as she sees his puppy-dog eyes. “As much as I want to get rid of these,” she starts, casting a stern look at Ella as she sees her knowing smile. “For _various_ reasons,” she completes and emphasizes this part. “We can’t just remove or mute them unless you want an entire squad to break down our door, and potentially explode our cover. And trust me when I say that the minute these devices stop working, Dan will be the first rush in,” she finishes, slightly annoyed at the protectiveness of her ex-companion.

“It could always be a malfunction,” Lucifer starts. “This way, we neither have to mute nor remove them,” he tries, quite proud of the loophole he found.

Chloe rolls her eyes and Ella chuckles. The brunette finally decides to speak.

“Sorry Dude, but Chloe’s right,” she simply says as her eyes drift to the letter she still holds in her hand, seriousness settling back on her features. “We need to catch these guys. The sooner we do it, the better. And as much as I appreciate Dan, the lesser we have him around, the quicker we’ll move forward with the Circle because I don’t think they’ll be very keen on a cop popping into the house regularly.”

Lucifer finally yields to Ella’s airtight argument. “Fine…,” he replies, slouching a bit.

Ella takes a last look at the letter before she hands it over to Chloe so she can add it to the file kept upstairs in the safe. “I’m gonna try and get some more rest. I need to be on my own for a bit, I think,” Ella says as she starts to head for her apartment, visibly unsure.

“Ella,” Chloe quickly replies. “You know I’m here for you if you need to talk or anything, right?”

“Yeah, I know, Chlo’.” She smiles at her friend. “But right now, I need to process all this on my own and figure things out. I promise I’ll come to you if I want to talk.” She winks at her. “Besides you and I have an overdue girl talk.” She looks at Lucifer and Chloe. “Please let me know if anything new comes around.”

Her friends simply nod and Ella walks towards her room to get some needed rest and quiet. 

After a moment of silence, Lucifer finally speaks.

“So what’s next?” he asks.

“Not sure,” Chloe answers honestly. “I figured we could go and check the scene - like probably half of this residence already did - and see if we can gather anything that would help us lift some of the fog we’re in at the moment.” She grabs the letter to bring it upstairs. “Before anyone else gets hurt,” she adds. She comes back a couple of minutes later and gets her purse from the kitchen counter. “Ready?”

“Lead the way, Darling,” Lucifer simply says. He chuckles as he sees Chloe grab a bottle of water from the fridge before they leave.

“It’s just a water bottle, Lucifer,” she answers as she hears his chuckle, smiling herself as her mind drifts back to their short, but intense make-out by the vending machine, despite her best efforts. “ _Leave it to the Devil to change such a simple object to a hot memory, or in this case, leave it to me,_ ” she thinks, as she reaches for the door.

It takes them good forty-five minutes to reach Jet’s place and the many people packed behind the police line to spy on the scene. They get as close as they can until Chloe sees some of her colleagues in the background. She takes a quick look around and pulls Lucifer by his sleeve so they don’t stay too long to avoid any of the uniforms recognising her and addressing her in front of the rest of the crowd.

As they both casually walk away from the group of bystanders, Lucifer suddenly freezes. It takes Chloe a couple of seconds to notice that the Devil isn’t behind her anymore. She goes back a couple of steps to stand beside him.

“What is it?” she enquires as he remains silent.

“I’m not sure,” he simply says, unable to word his thoughts yet. “Just an impression that something is lurking around here,” he adds, looking into the alleyway to his right.

Chloe starts to walk into the alley to investigate his gut feeling, knowing by now to trust him on this. Lucifer grabs her arm.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“My job,” she simply replies, her tone light. “You had a hunch and we follow it.”

“Right, let's walk into this creepy alley unprepared after I just had a bad hunch…” he ironically says, but quickly takes hold of Chloe once again as she didn’t get - or didn’t want to hear - his irony. “You do know I’m mortal around you?”

Chloe turns to him, surprised. “No, I didn’t.” 

“Oh…,” Lucifer replies, almost positive he shared this with her in the past.

“What do you mean, you’re mortal around me?” Chloe asks, truly curious.

“Well as you know, I’m the Devil,” he winks at her. “And the Devil is immortal, except around you. Apparently, my mojo doesn’t work on you and you make me vulnerable,” he pauses for a moment. “In more ways than one.”

“I…,” the Detective starts, not sure what to say next as she understands, that despite the danger and uncomfortable situations she put him in over their time together, Lucifer still decided to stick around. Although, if she was honest, most of these sticky moments were his doing, to begin with. “Why did you stick around? I mean you could have died so many times… oh, my G…” Chloe stops before she finishes the G-word. “I shot you!” Her hand ghosts over where she shot him. “Lucifer, I’m so sorry…”

“It’s quite alright, I assure you,” he smiles. “I barely feel it nowadays.” She frowns. “Kidding, Darling. I healed completely after you dropped me back at Lux.” He takes a step closer to her, and into the alley. “You’ve made me feel more alive in a couple of months than I have in millennials in Hell AND in the Silver City.” His eyes lock with hers. “It’s well worth getting shot in the leg once or twice.” He smiles at her. He sees Chloe’s brain turning full speed to process all he said. “With you, everything is a new sensation, both a blessing and a curse.” His eyes suddenly turn dark. “Getting shot may not have been the best experience, but when your nails raked my skin to mark me, that was new and _very_ enjoyable,” he adds, desire flashing in his eyes as they take a slight turn of red.

Chloe looks away, slightly blushing, and takes a look around before she kisses the Devil. Soon he finds himself backed against the brick wall, surprised by her boldness. She stops a split second before she takes hold of his lips once more. Lucifer automatically wraps his hands around her to bring her against him, truly enjoying this new side of Chloe, and one he never suspected, if he was honest. He deepens the kiss and smiles as he hears a moan at the back of her throat. Chloe starts to trail her lips along his jawline, grazing his stubble. Just as Lucifer is about to suggest they find a quieter place - or head back home - he hears the sound of footsteps approaching. Unfortunately because of the siren in his arm, he processes the information too late to react.

“What the Hell!” comes Dan’s voice from the entry of the alley.

They both look towards the interrupting cop, not sure what to say. Chloe looks like a deer caught in the headlight of a car as she realises what she did was indeed rather irresponsible and out of character, and yet she can’t bring herself to feel bad for finally taking something - or someone in this case - for herself and live a little as Maze tells her repeatedly. Is it her fault he was so enticing, and what that was supposed to be a simple peck turned into a bit more than what she has in mind? 

Lucky for her, Lucifer speaks first in an attempt to break the hugely uncomfortable silence, as he can almost see smoke coming out of Dan’s ears. This gives Chloe a couple of moments to think of _any_ plausible reasons for this. He partly lets go of the Detective, his hands still lingering on her lower back, and positions himself slightly differently as to use Chloe to hide his now rather visible enjoyment of their previous position. He looks around to see if Dan was followed before he finally speaks.

“Hello Officer Espinoza,” he starts, his tone very different from the one he usually uses when addressing Dan, but fully coherent with his cover in this sting operation. “Is there something we can help you with?”

Without noticing, the small group walks a bit further into the alley and out of view of the crowded street.

“What on Earth do you think you’re doing? And Chloe, how could you let this happen?” Dan asks, as he walks closer to the two of them.

Chloe remains silent, still not sure what to say. Lucifer decides to answer Dan, even though the question was mostly directed at Chloe.

“Chloe and I were snooping around,” he lowers his voice to barely a whisper, just in case. “You know because of what happened and Ella’s _thing_ …,” he stops there, not sure how to continue without lying, but also not caring if Dan filled in the blank himself or not.

Chloe continues his sentence in an attempt to save appearances. “We heard footsteps coming our way and weren’t sure who it was, and not sure how to explain our presence in an alley if we got caught, so…,” she says, not convinced herself, but who knows maybe, it would trigger Dan into finishing the sentence himself, as her brain was still a bit short of her complete thinking abilities, so she worked with what she had.

“So you thought making out at the back of an alley was the solution?” Dan completes, clearly not persuaded by her explanation.

Lucifer smirks and Chloe elbows him to beckon him to keep any remark he might have had for himself. As usual, he simply looks at her, pretending to be hurt and proceeds with what he wanted to say anyway.

“Well we’re a couple after all,” he smiles. “I’m sure you know what young love is yourself, Officer,” he finished, avoiding using Detective on purpose as he knows this pisses Dan off.

“It’s Detective Espinoza,” Dan replies. “Now get lost before I arrest you both for public indecency,” he finishes, absolutely not convinced by their charade, but knows now is not the time to talk about this.

“Very well,” Lucifer says as he watches Dan walk away from them. “Have a great day, _Officer_ ,” he finishes.

Once he’s out of ear range, Chloe turns to Lucifer.

“Did you really have to do this?”

“What?” he replies innocently.

“Antagonize him like this? Now he’s going to be a pain in the ass until the end of this.”

“Remind me who attacked first, Darling?” he counters as Chloe blushes. “Besides, look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t enjoy seeing him squirm with anger there?” he winks, daring Chloe to contradict him. When she doesn’t reply, he continues. “Nice save there by the way. I’m pretty sure he _nearly_ bought it,” he teases her.

“Shut up!” Chloe says, her tone not so angry as one would expect, out of concrete elements to prove him wrong. She looks back into his eyes. “But back to the “being mortal around me” business, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes,” he answers. “As long as you don’t shoot me by mistake, we’ll be fine. We’ve been just perfect until now, haven’t we?”

Chloe understands the joke in his words, but his tone doesn’t match it. She feels it’s not - once again - the appropriate time to push the issue, but she adds to the list of topics she will discuss with him at some point, once she cleared some of the previous questions she had.

They walk into the alley until they reach the corner and turn to the left. They find a wall and a service door a couple of feet away. They head back to their previous spot and turn to the other side, surprised when they see that the alley continues and narrows until the two walls meet to form a triangle. They both look surprised at the unusual shape of the construction and decide to investigate a bit further until Lucifer freezes once more.

“What is it?” Chloe asks as her fingers reach for her LAPD issued purse gun - a Taurus 738 TCP - given to her just in case. She doesn’t take it out yet but gets ready to shoot if necessary.

“I’m not sure,” Lucifer replies, glancing around a bit nervously. “Someone’s here, or at least it feels this way.”

Chloe carefully peeks around the corner and towards the street to check if anyone is heading towards them but doesn’t see anything. She also controls the opposite side and the metal door -just in case - but nothing’s here as well. “I can’t see anything or anyone,” she finally says, once she’s finished looking at the only possible entryway.

Lucifer suddenly locates the two dumpsters at the far end of the alley, and close to the walls. He grabs Chloe by the arm and walks them toward the fortunate hiding place before Chloe can say anything. However, once they’re behind the big dumpsters, they lose sight of the street of the weird triangle-shaped end of the alley.

“What do you think you’re…,” Chloe starts.

Lucifer puts his hand to her mouth and makes a shush sign. Once Chloe nods her understanding, he removes his hands from her mouth. Chloe starts to open her mouth to whisper and scold him to not shush her like this again, but then she hears footsteps coming their way. They both crouch a bit further behind the dumpsters and remain very still. 

Lucifer silently checks at the side of their hiding place to try and catch a glance at the intruder once he’s certain he now has his back to them. He hears the echo of his footsteps in the alley go weak and barely has the time to catch a glance at his hair as he disappears from his sight and into the triangle. Lucifer gives it a couple more moments before he finally looks back to Chloe to let her know it was safe to come out as she had no view of the situation from where she stood. She slowly stands up, gun in hand and ready to shoot.

“How is this possible?” she asks, not understanding how someone could just disappear into thin air. She quickly walks to the corner to check the street but nothing has changed. She looks back at Lucifer, and then proceeds to check every wall in the alley for any kind of hidden door - or mechanism - but doesn’t find any. “How is this possible?” she repeats as she makes her way to the Devil. “Did you see where he went? Were you able to see who it was?”

Lucifer lets her calm down before he speaks. “I didn’t see where he went. All I saw was red hair turning after _this_ corner,” he replies as he shows the beginning of the dead-end. “And yes, I’ve seen him before, or at least I think I did,” he completes before she can voice her question. “He’s the guy that interrupted us back at the common room.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I sensed him there, and here just now as well.”

Chloe wants to challenge his answer that doesn’t make sense to her, but then she sees the resolve in his face and remembers he is the Devil after all. She decides to take his words for it. “How did you know he was coming?” she requires instead. “Do you have some sort of a magical sense that we, Humans, don’t have?”

“I don’t have a _magical_ anything. Although some have considered some part of me divine,” he jokes, slightly bothered by the use of magical. “But I can sense non-human beings.” Chloe doesn’t reply yet, not sure what to say. “Which is what I don’t get.” 

“Why?” 

“What I sensed when he approached us is very unusual,” he completes. “The same thing happened the first time we saw him, but it was lighter, almost as if it had worn off him. But it’s also possible I toned the feeling down. I guess my mind was otherwise occupied, and my Devil side tends to numb some parts of myself,” he finishes.

“Non-human?” Chloe asks, not bothering to make a complete sentence, being too new to this new concept.

“We, Celestials can identify each other,” he starts. “For example, if any of my siblings show up on Earth, I can feel them - or rather their essence,” he pauses to let her catch up. “My Father made sure we could identify ourselves to avoid any duplicitous plans,” he thinks for a moment to find the right words that would carry what he meant understandably. “But during the time I spent in Hell, I taught myself to recognize other types of _supernatural_ beings,” he frowns a bit as he mentions the supernatural term. “I will regroup them in the demon category.”

“Okay,” Chloe simply replies.

“Back in the days, possession by a demon of a human body was still allowed and some of them used this opportunity to escape my realm by jumping into a freshly dead human body and live their best life until the body gave out and they returned to me.” His eyes glow a faint red, but very different from the one Chloe already saw. This shade was full of anger and disgust towards these creatures. “Each time a demon escaped, I was in charge of bringing it back down, and Hellhounds are efficient, but not very discreet, so over the years I’ve realised that a demon possessing a human body has no soul and _smelt_ different compared to another living human, or my siblings.” He checks if Chloe is still with him before he continues. When she nods, he starts again. “I mastered this skill and in less than a century I was able to seek them out without the help of my Hellhounds. I finally banned possession. Anyone risking it would face a punishment worse than Hell itself,” he finishes, not willing to share any details on this part, looking a bit away from Chloe, as he lets his darkest past show up.

“Okay,” Chloe repeats. “So what’s the issue with our mystery suspect?”

“That’s the thing,” Lucifer says. “I feel some celestial vibes coming from him, which is why I was able to sense him, but he doesn’t smell like a demon - or any other hellish being - and I was able to sense a soul in him, which is only present in your species.”

“Species? Really?” Chloe jokes and Lucifer chuckles in response. “So our mystery guy is human?”

“It would appear so,” Lucifer replies, still unconvinced and puzzled by how he felt.

“So he can’t have, like, crossed through a wall or something,” Chloe asks. “What?” she says as Lucifer chuckles.

“It’s not Harry Potter, Love,” he jokes. “More seriously though, even I can’t do that and I created the stars, and I used to travel in-between planes.”

“You created the stars?” Chloe replies. “Never mind,” she says as she realised her question would have brought more questions than answers, and now wasn’t exactly the best of places to have this discussion. She walks back until she reaches the end of the alley. “So this means there has to be a secret door somewhere.” She trails her fingers along the brick wall one last time in search of anything that could explain what happened but lets out a frustrated groan as she finds nothing. “I think we should come back later, maybe with Ella. It’s going to be dark soon, and he could come out any minute, and I don’t think us making out again would sell it this time.”

Lucifer simply nods and follows behind her as she walks towards the busy street, still stuck on his unfamiliar sensation. He finds a bit of appeasement as he places his hands on her lower back and feels Chloe lean into his touch. How she manages to ground him remains a mystery to him - not that he had any complaint. They quickly look around to make sure they wouldn’t be noticed too much before they join the rest of the bypassers and head for their house, not sure how many minutes passed since they stepped into the alley.

They walk in silence for a couple of minutes and away from the agitated crime scene before Chloe finally - after much hesitation - decides to ask him.

“Lucifer?” her voice is tentative.

“Yes, Love?”

“Do you think we could talk about you being the Devil?”

The Devil in question barely tenses, fingers still at her lower back, but an inch away from her skin. “ _Well here’s the other shoe,”_ he thinks. Chloe feels the change in his stance and quickly completes her question.

“I haven’t changed my mind,” she starts. “I just have questions about, well everything, and I figured I could ask the first batch of them while we walk back. I don’t feel very comfortable discussing them in the house anymore, with Ella around and the mics Dan set up.”

Lucifer relaxes and resumes his previous position. “Of course, Darling,” he replies, relieved. “I said I would answer any questions you may have, so ask away.”

“Okay,” Chloe replies, happy he was still so open about this, but not sure where to begin as she had many questions. She makes a list of what she wants to know first. She starts with the most recent one. “So you created the stars?”

Lucifer chuckles as he didn’t expect her at all to ask this one first. He thought she would wonder about what the Silver City or even Hell was like. Or maybe ask about some dictators or family members as Linda did, but once again, his Detective took him by surprise.

“Yes, I did,” he simply says. A smile appears on his face as he recalls the moment. “It was the first task Father gave me when he created his newest toy, aka Humanity, with Eve and Adam. He wanted me to design something that would always remind them of how small they were compared to the bigger picture, aka Him, despite the free will he granted them, so they would always remember their origin,” he pauses. “So I threw a couple of lanterns in the sky to light and bring them some comfort in the darkest night. It was beauty in its purest form,” he concludes, his tone very philosophical with an underlying softness at the memory. “However, Father was somehow displeased with my work because it didn’t fit what he had in mind. I told him that if He wasn’t happy with what I did, he could do it himself, take back what I had created and left. This earned me my first warning, and first stay in Hell. When He allowed me to come back to the Silver City, life simply resumed as it was before, and the stars weren’t given back to humanity for a couple more centuries,” he finishes, his tone bitter.

“Wow,” Chloe replies, in awe of what he told her, and at the same time not surprised.

Lucifer clears his throat. “So what do you want to know next?”

“Is anything from the Bible true? I mean I didn’t have a very religious education, but I know my classics,” she winks.

“Vast question indeed, some is, but most of it has been changed to explain things they didn’t get, or be an instrument to carry out their message across.”

“What about your punishment?”

“This bit is painfully real,” he replies, his voice becomes weaker as he says so.

“Can I ask what happened? Is it what caused your _other_ face?” She understands the Devil is hesitant to talk about this point and quickly amends her question. “You don’t have to explain anything if you don’t want to. I mean…”

“It’s quite alright, Darling,” he replies. “What happened is rather simple actually,” he starts as he tries to hide the anger from his voice, but some of it still seeps through. “I grew tired of Him controlling my life and I simply wanted to break free. Each time He wanted something done, no matter what, none of it was enough for Him, and I could never please Him. So one day I decided to end His tyranny and led a rebellion. All of my allies chickened out and he banished me to the place He created for the lowest of His creatures to rot until they decided to redeem themselves. Because I wanted so much what they had, he thought it fitting to have me rule it.” Lucifer takes a calming breath before he continues. “I guess this little spark of freedom I wanted was the last strike for me after I refused to bow to His will when I created the stars and Eden. As a consequence, I was deemed unworthy of the Silver City and sentenced to take care of Hell for all times until I got bored and decided to leave it, Dad’s wrath be damned.

“Eden? You mean with Adam and Eve and the apple?”

“Yes,” he smiles. “This one I’m proud of,” he adds. “It started after yet another argument with Father and Mother about his newest creation. He thought they were so perfect and would never be corrupted, or disobey His orders, so I decided to show Him just how wrong He was, and tempted Adam and Eve into breaking the one rule he set out for them.” He looks at Chloe. “The rule in place was just what it was, which is a rule. And the forbidden fruit was also just an apple, nothing more, which made it all the more fun. It didn’t take long to convince them to give in and break the _only_ rule given to them in exchange for everything they ever wanted.” He pauses. “After this, I made my second stay in Hell and humanity was banned from the Garden of Eden and condemned to walk around the Earth.” He chuckles. “It was a bit of a petty move, I admit. And maybe this is where my reputation when it comes to deals started, but it pissed Dad so much it was well worth it.”

Chloe smiles at him as she realises that the Big Bad Devil everyone made him out to be was simply a normal teenager testing his parents’ patience, and the more they turned against him, the more he challenged them. No wonder he had such a bad image of himself. Anyone would, with such a distorted family. “So is your,” she hesitates to use the word Father as he didn’t deserve it in any way. “He also burnt you?”

“Not directly.” He tries to find a way to explain it in words that would be understood by Chloe. “But in a way, yes. What changed is how it happened.” Chloe looks a bit lost. “The two first times I went there, I agreed to it and flew myself down in Hell for the time of my punishment. After the rebellion, I just couldn’t go back to being the obedient puppet He wanted to have and I refused to obey, should it be at the cost of my life. Mother pleaded for me to be sent to Hell, instead of being removed from existence, and Father decided to make an example of his former favourite son to show that no one, not even his flesh and blood, was above his command, and so he ordered my twin brother to take care of it.” Pain crosses his face before he continues. “The pain I felt has no equal and just like that I was banished from my former Home and branded a traitor. My face had to be the reflection of this, hence the horrid appearance of my Devil side.”

“So your wings were removed as well?”

“No,” he replies. “This one I - or rather Maze - did to myself. I ordered her to cut them off to signify to Dad I was done with playing by His rules and I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. It’s right when I decided my stay here would be permanent, and that Los Angeles was my new home.”

Chloe doesn’t know what to say as she realises how wrong people were about the Devil and couldn’t believe how he was still able to keep a good heart despite all this. Had she been in this situation, she wasn’t sure she would have. She takes his hand and turns his face towards her, eyes full of compassion. She brings his face to hers and softly kisses him. The kiss is filled with tenderness. He doesn’t deepen it yet, simply enjoying the softness of it, bringing her closer to him. He felt a weight off his shoulders now that this was out of the way. When she separates from him, Lucifer can see the desire in her eyes, as well as unconditional acceptance of what - and who - he is. Chloe grabs his hand and leads him towards the door.

“Shall we go in?” she asks, voice thick.

“We shall, Darling,” he answers and follows her eagerly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it. We're slowly inching towards the end ;). A few more chapters left though ^^.  
> And thank you all for your comments, feedback, kudos, likes, faves and all. They do brighten my days!!!


	7. CHAPTER 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the new chapter.  
> Sorry for the long time! I promise I'll try to not have such a long time before the next one!  
> HUGE thanks to ManuHerz79 for the beta :).

***  
Previously in **One Hell of a Sting** :  
Lucifer and Chloe discovered a secret place and things are about to get down ;).  
***

Just as the door closes, Lucifer grabs Chloe’s hand to bring her against him once more, already missing her touch. She happily complies and returns his kiss with a fervour equal to his. He pushes her against the door and breathes heavily as he feels her breasts press into his chest. Chloe - mirroring his arousal - takes in a sharp breath, as their groins touch. She slowly walks them backwards until his lower back hits the kitchen counter. He loses his balance for a blink and grips her right hip harder in response to steady himself. He swiftly turns them around so Chloe can now sit on the counter and steps in-between her legs to continue his exploration of her body. The Detective brings her hands behind her to give him access but in doing so, pushes one of the mugs off the marble surface and it crashes loudly on the wooden floor. They both pause as they hear and see the broken ceramic pieces on the floor, but it takes Lucifer barely a second to find his previous spot on Chloe’s pulse. She almost discards the thought of being caught as she feels his soft lips on her skin, and manages to voice part of it.

“Ella...” she whispers.

Lucifer smiles as he trails back up to her ear. “Fast asleep,” he counters.

“Mics…” Chloe adds, now rendered to one-syllable words as the rational part of her brain battles with the horny one.

“Let them hear,” Lucifer starts. “Maybe they can even learn a thing or two,” he jokes. However, his last comment is what gives the advantage to rational Chloe. He senses the shift in her demeanour. “Shall we take this upstairs?” he adds, so low she barely hears him.

She nods and hops down from the counter as he lets her go. She takes his hand and makes a shush sign with her fingers. He smirks.

“Sneaking upstairs like teenagers,” he replies as he happily follows. He grabs her waist before she can get up the stairs. “Or like a forbidden lover,” he adds. “Lucifer likes,” he finishes as he lets her lead the way. He watches in awe as she sways her hips obscenely while she climbs up the stairs and winks at him before she walks into their room. “You minx!” he breathes out before he follows her and closes the door behind them.

As soon as the Devil steps into the room, Chloe backs him against the closed door and Lucifer can’t stop a surprised “humpf” as his back connects with the rather thin wood. Chloe pushes his jacket off his shoulders, their heavy breathing the only sound in the room. He takes the upper hand in turn, fully enjoying this little power play. He slides his hands down her body to pause on her hips, fingers barely a graze on her skin before he slips them under her top. Chloe obeys his silent incentive and lifts her arms so he can take her top over her head and discard it somewhere in the room. Her bra is the next item to go and she’s left exposed to him from the waist up.

His lips find her skin anew and he trails them over her pulse, lingering there to leave the faintest mark, fade enough so the outside world wouldn’t see, but also visible enough so that they are both reminded of it. He knows the Detective will probably complain about this later on, but he doesn’t care, and clearly, right now this feels too good for her to say anything as well. While he continues his way and follows her left shoulder blade with his lips, he feels her deft fingers undoing his shirt and when she’s done, he removes his hand from her only for the necessary time for the garment to fall to his feet. He resumes his previous position before he slides his hands towards the centre of her jeans. He opens the button and pushes them down her legs. But the zipper gets stuck and he lets out a weird noise, in-between a frustrated sigh, and a surprised chuckle. Chloe laughs at the unexpected sound.

Lucifer huffs as she mocks him. “You know what?” he starts. “I think I much prefer you in a dress.”

“Do you now?” she replies, smiling. “However, it’s much less convenient,” she adds, a grin on her face.

“I disagree,” he counters. “I would say it all depends on the point of view.”

He finally manages to undo the stuck zipper, almost ripping it off and quickly slides the trousers down her legs, only to be blocked by her shoes. Chloe tries to get her shoes off but they’re stuck in the legs of her jeans, almost off, but not completely, making the removal of both items impossible. She lifts her left leg in an attempt to force her foot out of the knot, but fails and instead loses her balance and ends up grabbing the Devil by the arm to steady herself. This, also, doesn’t turn out as it should have and she brings the Devil down to the floor with her. Lucifer just has the time to turn so that he lands on his back before Chloe does. She ends up on top of him, hands on both sides of his head, face barely an inch from his. 

There’s a moment of silence, uncertain and heavy with the previous sexual tension before they both burst out laughing at the dorkiness of their situation. When they calm down, Lucifer smiles as his hands rest on her hips.

“Well that’s a first for me,” he says, still chuckling. But soon the air shifts for a completely different type of playfulness and his eyes darken as he takes in the almost naked siren on top of him, pressing in in all the right places.

He switches their position so she now lies below him, her trousers at her ankles. He quickly gets rid of the last obstacle and finally slides her jeans down. As he stands up, he also removes his shoes, a smirk on his face. He drops them down with purpose. “I will not make the same mistake twice,” he jokes.

His grin widens as he comes back down to her feet, but this time, it’s filled with intent and leaves very little doubt of what he plans to do. He slowly makes his way up her legs, alternating between right and left to make sure all her nerves there are fully awakened. He pauses at the junction right behind her knee where the skin is the thinnest, nibbles lightly, before he moves up, lips on her inner thighs as his fingers trace the outside. He stops right as he reaches her already very hot centre. He exhales heavily, almost sad to leave before he continues up to tease her near her hip bone. He smiles when he hears the disappointed sigh from Chloe as he moves further away from where she wants him most. She tries to hide it and clears her throat but he catches it nonetheless. He travels on, avoiding on purpose all her most sensitive areas along the way, and finally arrives between her breasts. Chloe can feel his grin against her skin and resists the urge to grab his perfectly styled hair to pull him where she's already grown desperate for him.

Lucifer brings his leg in-between hers to tease her, barely there and remaining almost still. Enough to make her feel the contact, but yet not enough for it to have any real impact, apart from building her anticipation of what’s to come. Chloe shifts her hips to have more friction, but each time Lucifer adapts his position. He finally takes one of her nipples between his lips and Chloe can’t stop the low moan leaving her throat as she feels - finally - more than a ghostly touch. All her nerves fire up at the same time.

Despite knowing exactly what he was doing, Lucifer can’t help the rush of pleasure straight to his groin at her reaction, and the pride he feels at seeing his Detective in this state. He had done this many times, but this feels like the first time - like everything he did with her lately - and he has a feeling things would only get beyond perfect as Chloe learns in more detail what makes him tick. And he couldn’t wait to have her torture him same as he did he because he knows she’ll get back to him for this.

He stops his train of thoughts to focus on the moment and the beauty under his body. He moves his lips to her other breast, fingers getting closer and closer to her most sensitive spot. Chloe somehow manages to recall, even if her mind seems like in a daze, that they are being watched - or rather listened to - and that she won’t be able to hold in her excitement any longer as Lucifer traces his tongue around her second nipple. She really tries to keep her next moan in, but barely manages to turn it down so that it wouldn’t be too obvious for the listener. Her fingers find their way to her lover’s hair and what she thought would be a “Stop” gesture turns out to be a “Don’t you dare stop” motion as she grips his hair harder than she thought she would. Lucifer lets out a laugh as he hears her holding another sigh in. Lucifer chuckles. “This is going to be _very_ fun,” he whispers against her skin, his voice very low. 

As he finally reaches her wet centre, Chloe finds the necessary will in her to stop him. She reluctantly moves her fingers from his hair to his shoulder and taps him. He lifts his head, half of him already knows what she’s going to say, and half of him hopes he is wrong. When he meets her eyes, he sees the deep desire in them and has troubles looking away, bewitched by her. Then she slowly gestures towards the mic Dan installed earlier on. Chloe sits up and entangles herself from him.

The Devil gets the message and stands up. He extends his hand to Chloe, now fully naked - except for her panties - not sure if this meant the end of their moment. He makes no move to touch her once more, as he knows that if he does, he probably won’t be able to stop, as it took a lot of willpower this time around. He tries to hide his “disappointment” at their fun cut short but is pretty bad at it. Chloe looks at him, weirdly mischievous, although the Devil can’t tell if it’s because her pupils are still fully blown, or because he wanted to see her desire in her eyes.

Chloe turns around, unashamed of her almost naked state. “I think I’ll go take a shower,” she says, her tone neutral and in complete contradiction with her body language.

Lucifer is lost with her mixed signals and doesn’t know what to do or say. He decides to go for the safe option and replies. “Okay, I’ll be…” he starts as Chloe heads for the bathroom. But before she’s out of view she turns back to him, removes her underwear and drops it provocatively on the floor. She winks at the Devil as she steps into the shower, giving him one last grin, and the smile he gives her in return as he realises she expects him to join sends a renewed jolt of arousal straight to her pussy. “I guess I’ll be downstairs then,” he finally finishes, as he opens his suit trousers. He puts them on the bed nearby and walks back to the door, opening the door and closing it to pretend he left the room to go downstairs. Then he steps out of the view from the ensuite bathroom to make Chloe wait a bit.

The detective lets a couple of seconds pass to give Lucifer time to join her but is slightly surprised when she doesn’t see him follow her. She peeks at the corner and calls out to him. She waits a bit more before she returns to the shower stall. She could have sworn she saw him start to take off his trousers, but then again, she heard the door open and close. Maybe her clues to invite him subtly were not as obvious as she originally thought. But then again it was Lucifer and he’d been known to be a bit oblivious before. She almost asks him to join her plainly, but then remembers they were listened to. And no matter how good her explanation is, she‘d have a hard time to justify this to her colleagues and Dan. She takes one last look and as she hears nothing finally turns on the showerShe sets the heat of the shower to the maximum her skin can bear and the room is filled with thick steam in less than a minute.

“ _Well too bad for you then, and me too, a bit,_ ” she thinks.

She happily steps under the spray and lets the hot water ease her muscles. She starts to relax more and more and feels her whole body melt. She closes her eyes to get lost entirely in the sensation and doesn’t really react as she faintly hears the slide of a door, her brain almost turned off. It’s only when she feels some steam escape the stall and a woosh of colder air on her skin that she opens her eyes to see Lucifer standing in the door frame. She smiles as she sees him and realises that she had been more disappointed than she thought when he didn’t show up. She steps back to give him some room. Lucifer nonchalantly walks in and brings his lips to her ears. The heat suddenly goes up a notch, under the combined effect of the steam and the Devil’s presence. She can feel him.

“You thought I left, didn’t you?” His voice is barely audible with the shower running in the background. “Why, Detective, did I sense a bit of disappointment?”

Chloe nods and leans further into his touch. She chuckles. “I may have doubted your detective skills for a minute,” she replies. “And I was a bit disappointed, and not only because I was going to shower on my own. I thought my clues were pretty obvious, but then again, it’s you, so....” she taunts.

“And what is that supposed to mean exactly, _Detective_?” he emphasises her nickname, as he brings her even closer, his arousal pressing against her lower back.

Chloe lets out a deep breath before she answers him. “Well you have been known to be a bit oblivious to the rest of the world and follow your own code from time to time.” Her voice is as casual as she can make it, given her situation.

“I admit I can be unfamiliar to some of your foolish Human rules and habits, but believe me when I say I don’t need any lesson to know how to read Human desires and pleasure.”

“Thanks to your mojo,” the blonde woman counters. Chloe gasps in surprise as she feels Lucifer’s fingers on her clit using just the right pressure and speed.

Lucifer smirks. “Are you sure about this, Darling?” he asks, innocently. “And you know I don’t need my mojo to read you like a book.”

“Bullsh-..., ' she takes in a sharp breath as the Devil drives his point home and brings her almost to the edge with just a few strokes.

“What was that? I’m sorry I didn’t hear it very well over the shower running and your breathing,” he continues. “Could you please use a coherent sentence? Remember, my mojo doesn’t work on you,” he teases her.

“ _Cocky bastard!_ ” Chloe thinks before she decides to give in as her desire overpowers her pride. She’ll have plenty of occasions to remind him of his lack of skills in reading people.

Lucifer feels the switch in her as her last walls break and her desire rises. He smiles and turns her around. “Now how about I get you cleaned up?”

Chloe sighs at the loss of contact but doesn’t have to crave it for too long as his hands find their way to her skin again. He pours a generous amount of soap and works it into a thick lather to apply it gently to her neck first, then her shoulders, back, ribs, before he reaches for the soap again. He follows her long legs and cleans her feet, tickling her, his nose hovering over her pussy. Lucifer steps around her and decides to take care of her hair. He pours some shampoo, careful not to drop some in her eyes, and starts to massage it into her scalp. Chloe feels a fresh wave of arousal as his fingers work out the last of her knots to leave her the most relaxed as she has been in a very long time. She moans low and presses further in his chest, her hips undulating of their own accord. Lucifer groans at the friction.

“Enjoying yourself, Love?” Lucifer asks.

Chloe simply hums, not able to voice anything else right now, as her muscles and entire body become rubber. Lucifer turns her in his arms so he now has better access to all her most sensitive areas, which he avoided on purpose earlier on. He spreads the soap over her breasts and her already too hard pebbles. He brushes the foam over them for a moment before he rinses it off so his lips can replace his fingers. His hands follow the curves of her body, pausing over her lower stomach as the water rinses off the soap so his mouth can follow everywhere his fingers lit a small fire. As he reaches her wetness, he can smell her arousal mixed in with the luxurious body wash he used, and the smell is just intoxicating. However, he resists the blatant temptation - for now - and instead continues down her legs, making sure the soap is all gone.

Chloe is now a writhing mess and has to hold onto his shoulders to steady herself as she doesn’t trust her legs anymore. She realises that she’s already walking the thin wire between her pleasure peak and her downfall and she could trip and tumble down at any moment. And to say he hasn’t even touched her _for real_ yet. She catches his almost black eyes as he looks up and signals him to stand up from his knees. The Devil follows her request and levels his face with hers, eyes never missing a beat. Lucifer lets his hands rest on her hips, fingers draw imaginary patterns right at the joint between her hips and thighs, curious to see what she has in mind.

Chloe blows on his right shoulder and brushes an imaginary piece of dirt off it. Lucifer looks at her, not sure what she tries to do. Chloe smiles, mischievous.

“Looks like you have some dirt there,” she says, her brain using all of her available resources to form her sentence. “I guess I better clean it up,” she finishes, as she turns him around so his back now faces her. Lucifer lets her take the lead back, and Chloe is happy to have a break to catch her breath before they continue because she wouldn’t have been able to last much longer. As a matter of fact, she still feels like she could come crashing down anytime. One thing she didn’t think of though, is that from this angle she had a close-up view of his scars. She feels pain as she reimagines the violence it took to create the crescent-shaped patch of skin. She pauses on his shoulders for a moment as she feels Lucifer tense under her fingers, but not enough to break their current desire. Soon he relaxes, signalling his complete trust in her. She lets her hands wander his chest and abs before she rests it just above the pelvis. Her other hand slowly circles one of his scars, tentative at first, before she draws nearer to the outer line of the crescent. She hears his sharp intake of breath as she gets closer and closer to the sensitive skin.

She half expects the Devil to recoil from her touch as her fingers gently ghost over the scars, but the twitch in his lower stomach she feels with her other hand tells her that this affects him more than she - or even he - would have thought. She slowly gets some more soap and starts to apply it to his scars - almost as if trying to heal them. She doesn’t know what to expect, but the low growl of pure bliss that escapes the Devil, the more she presses, heightens her arousal to no end, and just like that she’s back on the wire. His moans get even lower as she tentatively replaces her hands with her lips. This allows her to trail her slender fingers down his body to rest on his hips before she wraps them around his erection.

Lucifer’s response to her touch is beyond anything she ever imagined and he’s now completely lost in her touch, his back leaning further into her arms. Chloe keeps “cleaning” him for a few moments which seem both neverending and fleeting. Until he can’t take it anymore and stops her movements before this all ends too soon. He slowly turns around, Chloe’s hands still on his hips.

“Looks like I have found my match,” he says, out of breath, before he pushes her against the wall, taking the upper hand once more. 

He brings his hand to her hip and lifts her leg so she can hook it behind his thigh. His cock twitches against her. He checks her eyes for a second to make sure she is ok before he enters her in one swift movement. Chloe brings her hands to his shoulder so keep herself steady, leg still hooked behind his ass, bringing him deeper as he starts to move. They’re both panting and moaning, fully lost in the pleasure, not that either of them wishes to draw this out anyway. Lucifers thrusts faster and deeper now. Chloe is the first one to give in as her orgasm hits her hard, the previous edging, only increasing the sensation. She lets out a rather loud and throaty moan as she rides her wave until the end, the noise of the running water hopefully covering the sound behind the thin glass door of the bathroom.

The combination of feeling Chloe contracting around him, fingers digging into his scars and grabbing at his hair, as well as the noise she makes sends Lucifer over the edge very soon after and he pushes deeply one final time, chasing his pleasure. He comes hard, with Chloe's name on his lips, his hand pushing against the tile of the shower stall so hard it cracks.

Once Chloe has finally caught her breath and is confident enough to use her legs, she brings her lag down, slowly untangles her fingers from his hair and searches his eyes. She presses her head against the wall and laughs. The Devil looks at her for a second before he joins her, her laughter contagious. Chloe grabs the body wash bottle and looks at Lucifer.

“How about we really shower this time?”

“We could,” Lucifer starts as his hands trail down her body, lips already on her nipple. “Or we could go for round two.”

Chloe smiles. “I guess this could be an option,” she replies, desire ignited again, despite her more than satisfying release.

But she doesn’t get a chance to continue her sentence as a knock on the door brings her back to the real world. She goes to reach for a towel to see who’s there but she feels the Devil’s hands clearly reluctant to let her go. When she finally reaches the bedroom door, she gives one last desire-filled look at Lucifer before he disappears back into the shower. Ella greets her on the other side of the door, not that it could have been anyone else anyway.

“Hey,” Chloe starts. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Ella replies, half heartedly. “Do you know where Lucifer is? Dan said he should be downstairs,” she adds.

Chloe can’t help but look back to the en-suite bathroom and blush a bit. Of course, Ella catches it even if it’s barely there. She then connects the last of the dots as she sees Chloe’s state of undress and the rest of the scattered clothes.

“I guess he must have gone for a walk then,” Ella continues, her tone neutral, but her smile up to her ears. “Was the _shower_ pleasant?”

“It was,” Chloe simply replies as she looks at her feet to try and hide the red in her cheeks. She clears her throat. “You said Dan told you Lucifer is downstairs?”

“Yeah. He called about five minutes ago to check up on me as he heard some noises coming from the pool and weird sounds coming from up here.” Ella winks at Chloe. “Since Lucifer was supposed to be downstairs and I couldn’t find him anywhere, I just wanted to make sure you both were alright. You know in case anything happened.”

“Just let me get dressed and I’ll be ready in a minute. I’ll let Lucifer know to meet us once he’s done,” she finishes.

She then closes the door and gets dressed quickly, a bit worried by the fact that Dan heard some footsteps from the backyard, which was certainly not used by the Devil at the time. She comes back out and joins Ella downstairs. She finds the brunette frozen near the glass door which leads to the pool. She walks to her and puts her hand on her shoulder. Ella turns slowly, letter in hand.

“I found this on one of the deckchairs,” Ella says as she hands the letter to Chloe.

“Have you opened it yet?”

She shakes her head. “I’m scared to discover what’s inside,” she truthfully answers. She walks back inside, followed by Chloe, and takes a deep breath before she carefully opens the folded paper. She pulls out the same paper which looks and feels like the first letter they got and starts to read aloud.

“Esteemed Member,

our highest representative has now validated your candidacy and you’re about to meet your first real assignment for the Circle.

But before that, you’ll be formally introduced to the rest of us and take your pledge to serve the Circle, no matter the costs. Failure will not be tolerated.

A car will pick you up to bring you to a secret location to confirm your nomination as Zeta. Be at your door at 8 pm sharp.

Alpha.”

Ella puts the letter on the counter and looks at Chloe, her face a mix of fear but also a steel determination to stop this organisation. She sits down.

“Do you realise what this means?” she asks Chloe.

“That this is getting way too dangerous,” Chloe replies, her worry for her friend taking over her professional instincts.

“Yes, but also this means that this might be our only chance to catch them all at once, including the brain of this operation.” Ella looks at Chloe, still determined. “According to this, it will be my formal pledge so all members will be present.”

“What if they’re not? What if some of them are taking part to this from a secure location like they would a video conference? What if it’s another test?” Chloe challenges.

“Only one way to find you,” Ella says. “I have to go,” she repeats. “Besides I’ve tried to keep up the charade this far, I can do it for a bit longer.” She pauses to think. “Now what we need to figure out is how to get the location information over to you.”

“Maybe we could use one of Dan’s mic?” Chloe offers.

“There’ll probably be enough jamming devices, so the inside of the house is completely isolated from the outside so that the mic won’t be of any use, plus they’ll probably do a check-up to see if I have any wire. They may trust me for now, but it doesn’t mean they’ll be careless. If the first test they gave me is any indication, they know what they’re doing. Plus they are giant nerds.” She stops to think of a solution. “Maybe if I leave my phone in the car which drives me to the location, you could triangulate it and know where I am. Hopefully, they won’t jam the cell signal from the car.”

“Ella…” Chloe starts.

“I know it’s dangerous, but we have to take this chance,” she reiterates, although Chloe is still not convinced and very much worried.

“Fine,” Chloe finally reluctantly agrees, aware that despite the danger of it all Ella is right. “But…”

“So Ladies, what did I miss?” Lucifer interrupts them as he walks in through the front door.

Chloe turns to him, taken aback as he was in the shower last she saw him. She’s both amused he would go this far and not surprised as he said he was going for a walk, and he doesn’t lie. She smiles at him as he makes his way to them. However, her worry is quick to return.

“Ella received another letter. It was dropped on one of the deckchairs. Dan picked up the audio and wanted to check she was OK.”

“So the Douche had a semi-good idea?” He smirks, happy with his comeback but soon drops it as he sees Chloe’s face. “What does the letter say?”

“It confirms my pledge is tonight,” Ella replies.

“So what’s the plan?” Lucifer enquires.

“I go in and you come to the rescue,” Ella jokes, but they all can hear the underlying fear in her comment.

“I see,” he turns to Chloe. “Alright, so what’s the real plan now, Detective?” 

“I…” Chloe starts. “It’s basically what Ella said.” She looks at the brunette. “Although we’re not sure everyone will be here and we could delay it until we have a better plan?” Chloe tries one last time.

Ella sighs. “Look Chlo’, I appreciate your concern, but I need Detective Decker right now, and she would tell you that we can’t waste time on this.” She smiles at Chloe. “Besides I’m sure they’ll all be there.”

“I have to say Miss Lopez is right on this.” Lucifer looks over at Ella. “I mean the plan is what it is, but, although not a fan of secret societies, being the Devil and all, I have known them for long enough to know that a pledge is one of the biggest events for them, so all members will be here including the most prominent ones.” He reaches for the letter to read it quickly. “If there’s one thing they love, apart from abusing my name, it’s their rituals.”

“Fine.” Chloe agrees, knowing that Lucifer is on Ella's side now and she can't argue with the both of them and win this. “So how do we prepare to locate you?”

“The best way is to clone my phone on yours so you can see exactly what I see. I would also hack into the video surveillance of the residence to prepare a back-up for you to follow the car from CCTV to CCTV. I highly doubt that we’ll head for outside of the residence. From all information I could gather, if we enter the plate in the surveillance feed, we can set it so it looks for this specific plate only.” Ella finishes, as she opens her laptop to get to work. “All should be ready before they come to pick me up,” she quickly completes before going back into her bubble.

“I’ll set up everything with Dan, just in case we need some muscles to intervene.”

“And I’ll be here if you need me,” he confirms, not sure what else to do.

_A couple of hours later_

Times fly quicker than they had noticed and soon they recognize that there are only a few minutes left before the clock turns 8 pm. Chloe had been busy setting everything with the precinct, Dan, trying to cover all the different ways this operation could go, including the worse ones, just to be sure to have it all under control. Ella had been on her computer almost the whole time, working her nerd magic so that everything was set up and ready to go. Even Lucifer pitched in, helping Chloe to be more objective and focus on getting it as close to reality as possible, pointing out when she was being too engaged, or when she couldn’t see the bigger picture, guiding her along the way. Ella finally comes out of the room, laptop in hand, dressed in her usual outfit, her face resolved. Chloe invites her to sit on one of the chairs around the counter, near the door.

“So as agreed,” the Detective starts, going over the plan for the tenth time. “Lucifer will stay here as back-up and will have access to your location and security feeds so he can join you if needed.” Lucifer shows his phone with a mirror of what Ella sees. “And I will be following the car from afar so I don’t get noticed, using your location and the CCTV as well to make sure I know where you are. Although as discussed and from what we found out this morning, it seems highly probable that they take you where we went earlier.” She pauses. “Which is both good and bad, because we have no idea how to get in.”

“Which is why you have the Dou.. I mean Dan ready with all the necessary arsenal to blow up the walls if needed,” Lucifer adds, in an attempt to calm her.

Chloe waits for Ella to confirm she’s okay with all this before she continues. “I’ll let Dan know when I’m going in if I can enter, so he prepares himself to move in. We’ve agreed that if more than ten minutes pass between the first and second contact, he’ll run-in with the big guns and arrest everyone in the place. Ten minutes should be enough for me to get in, make sure you’re safe before they raid the place.” She looks at Lucifer. “And you’ll be our back-up if we need an extra one,” she says. She feels the need to explain why she doesn’t wish to include the Devil if not necessary. “I called the Lieutenant, and he made it clear you were not official Police, and this could be a high-risk case for the DA afterwards. And since you’re not allowed to carry a gun…”

Lucifer laughs. “Very funny this Lieutenant,” he continues as he sees the two women’s puzzled features. “There’s no way I’m letting either of you go in alone.”

“Lucifer,” Chloe starts. “We’ve covered this already.”

“We have and I still don’t agree with you,” he says, matter of factly.

“We won’t be alone,” Chloe repeats. “Dan is ready with a whole unit behind him to jump in on call,” she silently pleads with the Devil to not make it harder than it already is. “I promise you the second I need help, I will let you know.” He relaxes slightly. “Besides, I need to be one hundred per cent focused on this and I can’t worry about your mortality problem while I’m in there,” she adds. “I know you won’t be far behind anyway.”

“Alright, I promise to let you go in without me by your side,” Lucifer yields.

“Thank you,” Chloe replies. “So Ella, ready?” she asks, just as they hear a car park in front of the house.

Ella takes a deep breath. “I guess this is it,” the brunette says, as she takes a deep breath. Then she opens the door and gets into a full black Chevrolet Camaro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it. Next chapter will be the epilogue. Depending it might be one or two chapters
> 
> And thank you all for your comments, feedback, kudos, likes, faves and all. They still brighten my days!!!


	8. CHAPTER 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is the epilogue for this story. I hope you like it.

CHAPTER 8 - EPILOGUE

Ella looks out the window for the whole drive to gather as much information as possible so hopefully, Chloe will have enough to locate her. The brunette sends pieces of her surroundings each time she recognizes a specific landmark. She feels rather confident her actions remain unnoticed to the thug behind the wheel. Between what she provided and the ping of her cell all should turn out just fine and she should be in and out in a blink - or at least she tells herself.

On her part, Chloe follows the small dot on the map, reassured a bit as she sees it ping to a stop near Jet’s place, and very close to the alley where she investigated earlier on. Ella confirms her fairly strong guess when she sends her the latest update right before she’s asked to get out of the car. 

The driver, who stayed silent for the whole drive and didn’t give her the time of day - apart from a few glances in the mirror - unlocks her door to signal they reached their destination.

“This way Zeta.” his voice is monotone. 

He walks towards the end of the alley and the wall, Ella not far behind. However, the woman is smart enough to keep a bit of distance in case anything turns sour. She sees him get close to the brick wall and discreetly takes out her phone, just in case and more out of instinct than anything. This pays off when she sees the driver enter a combination and hears a trap door open. She barely has time to hit “Send” to let Chloe know before he turns to her. However, she’s not quick enough to pocket the phone, so instead, she pretends to look at something and switches off the shared interface in case the driver decides to take a look. She sees - from the corner of her eyes - the confirmation the video is now deleted as he holds out his hand.

“No phones allowed.” he simply says.

Ella nods and hands her device to him. He switches the screen on quickly and pockets the smartphone. He then points towards the hidden door so she can walk in, alone. 

As Ella follows the stairs and the dim light, she can’t help but feel like one of these action movie stars entering the underground lair of any bad guy, but also like the protagonist of a horror movie stepping straight into where she shouldn’t. She takes a deep breath to calm all the adrenaline coursing through her veins and reminds herself that this isn’t a movie but real life. She takes one last look at the exit as the trap door shuts behind her.

“No way but down,” she whispers before she continues her way down the stone steps.

Chloe parks near the alley where Ella’s last location pinged but doesn’t go in yet as she waits for the confirmation the driver is gone for good. For now, the car is still there. Soon enough, the detective sees the driver type something on his phone before he finally gets behind the wheel and drives off. Chloe lays low in the car so he doesn’t notice her while he passes her by. Once the detective sees him leave her rearview mirror, she carefully opens the car door and hurries towards the alley. She walks as silently as possible, aware of all her surroundings before she reaches the same dead-end as before. She takes out her phone and looks at Ella’s video for the 100th times. She zooms in, out, pauses to see all details and the right combination before she gives it a try. Evidently, it fails. She squints her to try and see past the driver who obscures part of the solution. After one last rewatch she thinks she has the combination but doesn’t know where the first brick is. She scrutinises the wall for any clues as to what this first step is. After some intense staring, she notices a small indent on one of the bricks. She takes a closer look and suddenly everything connects as she sees the small “alpha” there. She checks the video one last time to make sure she guessed right. It takes her another couple of tries, but she manages to open the door hidden under a manhole cover behind her. Before she steps in, she opens the camera on her phone, pushes the contrast to its maximum and sends several pictures to Lucifer. She completes her text with detailed instructions on how to activate the lock. She first takes a photo of the brick with the “alpha” indent, then the one with “beta” and so on, until she finishes with the “zeta” brick. Satisfied when she sees the two small ticks indicating the Devil read her texts, she puts her phone on silent, warns Lucifer and Dan she’s going in and repeats the command to storm in if they get no news from her within the next ten minutes. Much like Ella earlier, Chloe watches the door close after her.

The Devil - for his part - is at the door the minute he gets the message from Chloe, ready to drive there. He goes through her message one last time.

“ _Just in case, here is how you can get in. But so far all is good and Dan has been informed as well. I’m going in._ ” he reads once more.

He hesitates for a moment to follow after her, torn between his promise to her, and his concern. But then again, he did promise to let her go alone, but not to get in a bit after she did, and since Chloe sent him the way in, it would be a waste to discard this information. Happy with his loophole, Lucifer finally decides to drive to the alley to see for himself. Besides, she said all was fine, but you can never be sure what will happen in such a situation. 

As he steps outside, he realises Chloe took their only car. He shrugs and instead decides to use his power to get there. He doesn’t often use teleportation ability - or rather a distortion of time and space that looked like teleportation to the common eye - when he travelled from one point to another as it could lead Humans to see things they shouldn’t, but he figures this time is a necessity. He reappears in the alley barely a minute later and takes out Chloe’s pictures to enter the combination. Just as he’s about to press the keys, he feels a chill down his spine and freezes. Now this one he identifies without an issue - to his utter disdain. He doesn’t bother to turn around.

“To what do I owe the displeasure of your visit?” his voice is filled with anger and resentment.

“Lucifer.” the other simply replies.

“Yes, that is my name, but don’t use it in vain,” he smirks before he finally faces his brother. “Have you finally decided if you’d rather displeased Dad for eternity or break your holy promise with the Master of Hell?” the Devil taunts further. However, Lucifer is slightly disappointed when he doesn’t get a reply. He brushes it aside and instead speaks again. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some places to be, and you’re not invited.” he finishes as he walks towards the wall again.

But before he can reach it, Amenadiel places himself in between, a smirk now on his lips.

“Do you mind?” Lucifer asks. When no reaction comes, his tone is more menacing. “Move.” he almost hisses, his voice low.

Amenadiel simply smiles smugly. “Make me.”

Lucifer looks back at the other angel, curious as to why Amenadiel would interfere. He vaguely entertains the idea to outspeed him, but soon realises this solution is impossible. Pushed by his curiosity, the Devil finally inquires.

“I know I fill your fantasies and boring day to day routines, but why are you doing this?” he smirks to hide his doubts. “I mean apart from being an annoying Daddy’s boy?”

The opposite archangel doesn’t reply straight after the question. Instead, Amendiel looks Lucifer straight in the eyes, almost as if defying him to make him move, or guess his intentions. When Lucifer stays still and silent, the older brother gives in.

“The Divine and Humanity don’t and shouldn’t mix.”

“You’re still stuck on that same broken record, are you?”

“How do you think your _human_ would react if she discovered who you are, what Mazikeen is, and how that hole in her living room appeared? How do you think she’ll feel when she realises you can throw a full-grown man through a wall?”

Lucifer smirks. “Well, first of all, this happened because of _you_ . You’re the one who came in demanding ridiculous things like the fact I should go back to Hell and take my demon with me. And then _you_ pissed me off, so one thing led to another and _you_ ended up in this wall.” he pauses. “Which _I_ had to get repaired by the way, so I’ll be sure to send you the bill. You can’t even begin to imagine how much it costs…” he stops mid-sentence as realisation dawns on him. “Wait, don’t tell me you dared do what I think you did?” Amenadiel’s silence is all the Devil needs to confirm his theory. Lucifer chuckles nervously. “You, Daddy’s boy, Amenadiel the Great, Mightiest enforcer of Dad’s will on Earth, dared to go against one of his most important rules and brought a human back from the dead.” the Devil stops to take in the news and the immovable expression of his brother. “And just to cover-up a silly hole in a wall,” he adds, not sure what all this means. Lucifer continues as Amenadiel remains stoic. “No, this doesn’t make sense, even for you,” the younger archangel adds.

Amenadiel lets it unfold as the Devil slowly works his way to understand the reasons behind all this. Then Lucifer’s eyes open wide, as he remembers how he felt when he came across the repairman and the geek in the alley.

“The poor lad was a test, wasn’t he? You used the excuse of this to test something before you went for the main course. But why?”

“You know why.” Amenadiel simply replies.

“Are you still stuck on this?” Lucifer asks. “As I told you before, I’m not going back. Do I need to say it in Assyrian or Hebrew so you finally register?” he taunts him - his tone laced with anger. When Lucifer gets no reply, he continues. “Why him though, he is insignificant?”

“Indeed he was. As you said, he was simply a mean to an end. I started to watch more closely after you started to work for the LAPD…”

“You Perv’.” Lucifer interrupts him.

“And I realised you would need someone to fix the wall. All I had to do was find the right candidate and let Mazikeen find the information by herself about this handyman specialised in discreet repairs.” Amenadiel continues as he ignores his brother’s comment.

“To what end? I mean apart from playing Frankenstein, what do you gain from this.”

“I realised I’ve been going at this problem all wrong, and because I couldn’t force you back to Hell, all I had to do was remove what - or rather who - kept you here. These mortals you’re so fond of. Remove the ties, and you’ll be begging me to take you back to Hell, with no return to this place possible since you decided to rid yourself of your only travel option.”

“Chloe,” Lucifer says in a breath as Amenadiel’s twisted plan finally makes sense in his head.

“The Divine and Humanity don’t mix, and I’m about ready to do anything to bring balance to this world again.” he reiterates.

Lucifer sees red in an instant and growls as he moves to hit his brother. Amenadiel blocks him easily and sends him crashing against the dumpster, the metal bin almost folding in two with the force of the blow. Lucifer is on his feet almost immediately after, his rage numbing the pain.

“This time I’m fighting back,” he says through gritted teeth before he lands a punch in his brother’s abdomen.

Amenadiel grabs his ribs in pain as he expected Lucifer to aim for his upper-body once more. But soon enough, the pain subsides and he’s back into the game. The fight between the Fallen and the Mighty goes on for minutes, each of them hitting, sparing, deflecting blows until Lucifer manages to get the upper hand on the powerful holy soldier. The Devil finally pins Amenadiel to the ground and with his left fist - using all his remaining strength - lands a massive jab. Lucifer smiles as he hears the jaw bone crack under the force of it and his eyes shine bright red as he hits him again, rendering his opponent unconscious.

Lucifer hurries to stand up, fully aware the KO will not last long and that this is his only window to get to Chloe. He refocuses his mind on how to open the trap door and momentarily forgets Chloe probably already got out. As soon as the passageway is available he rushes in, not even aware the door closed behind him until he stumbles straight into the swearing ceremony of Ella. He stops as he understands what he just did, and how he’s going to get out of this situation.

He takes a quick look at Ella and slightly relaxes as he doesn’t see any signs of Chloe. After a moment, he takes in the group around Ella, and finally the Alpha at the very end of the room. Slowly, the Alpha lifts his arm and points it towards the Devil.

“Kill him,” he orders.

A guard appears from nowhere and points a gun towards Lucifer. The Devil starts to smile, ready to unleash his mojo on the henchman. But before he can say anything, he feels himself pushed out of the way and hears the detonation of the gun. He looks beside him and sees Ella fall to the floor as she took the bullet for him. Lucifer catches her before she hits the ground and lays her down softly.

“Miss Lopez…” he starts as Ella drifts away.

Then a wave of anger as he rarely felt before overtakes him and his eyes flame up, soon followed by the rest of his Devil appearance. In the next seconds, all Hell breaks loose - literally. The Devil first takes out the guard who shot his friend and crashes him against the nearest wall, satisfied and he hears some of his bones crack upon impact. He then makes his way to the others, all now quivering in fear. Only the Alpha appears calm on the other side of the room. His rage runs free and he knocks the cultists one after the other, now heading for the Alpha. 

The coward feels his near end and uses the last of the general confusion to escape through the back door near his station and into another part of the alley. The last man approaches Lucifer and manages to club him. The Devil groans as he feels the pain in his knee, meaning Chloe isn’t far. He hurriedly discards him, as if the guy is nothing more than a fly, and quickly makes his way back to Ella, getting his face and body under control right in time as Chloe, Dan and the SWAT team barge in. 

Lucifer takes a look at them and smirks as he sees the Alpha cuffed and led by Chloe inside the room. Of course, his Detective would catch the bad guy. However, Chloe soon leaves the perp in the hands of the SWAT as she sees Ella on the floor. She yells at Dan to call the ambulance for immediate transport to a hospital and rushes to her friend’s side. She quickly looks at Lucifer to make sure he is fine and she sees his eyes return to normal. She doesn’t need a drawing to know what happened to these men, but this is by far the least of her worries.

She checks Ella’s pulse and breathing and sighs in relief as she can feel a steady heartbeat, but staggered breathing. She does a quick check before the EMTs finally get here and presses on the bullet entry wound. It looks like a clean shot - through and through - and it doesn’t look like any major artery is hit. The pain caused by the pressure put by Chloe brings Ella back to reality and she groans as she sees Chloe and Lucifer. The EMTs finally walk in and navigate through the room, as the rest of the SWAT team picks up the cultists to bring them in. Once Ella is on the stretcher and on her way to the ambulance, Chloe stands up to ride with her to the hospital. She quickly turns to Lucifer.

“She’ll be okay,” she says, as much for her benefit than his. “I’ll text you the hospital address and let you know once she’s out of surgery. Meet me there?”

Lucifer simply nods and slowly stands up, exiting after Chloe, still shaken that Ella could have died by his carelessness.

_About five hours later - USC Medical Centre - Los Angeles_

Lucifer has been waiting at the precinct for Chloe to confirm to him that Ella was out of surgery and back in her room. Lucky for him, the hospital is only a couple of miles away. As he gets there, he doesn’t bother to ask for Ella’s room number as Chloe already provided the information to him. From what his lover told him, Ella had been in surgery for about two hours but they had confirmed that, although she would need a rather lengthy recovery time before the forensic genius could go back to work, the bullet didn’t cause any major damage, and she’s now stable with a ninety per cent chance of having very minor to no after-effects at all.

Lucifer stops before he opens the door. He knocks softly until he hears a faint “Come in”. He slowly enters and smiles at Ella and Chloe. Chloe stands up to greet him and encourages him to walk further into the room.

“So you can knock.” she jokes, in an attempt to lighten the tension, but with little success, she realises as she sees Lucifer’s forced smile. She squeezes his hand before she speaks again. “I’m gonna get something from the cafeteria, can I get you anything?”

“I’m good,” Lucifer replies.

“Okay.” she turns to Ella. “I’ll be right back.” 

Ella nods and stares at Lucifer. Then Chloe exits to give Lucifer and her friend a bit of time together. Lucifer takes a step closer to the hospital bed. In all his time on Earth, the hospital was the one thing he couldn’t get used to, and which made him feel oddly uncomfortable. Maybe because his first experience was straight after Chloe got shot. He pushes the thought aside for later use, maybe during one of his sessions with Linda. He remains silent, not sure where - or how - to start. Finally, he goes for his usual care-free devilish persona to hide his discomfort.

“Glad you’re not dead, Miss Lopez.” he gives her his facade smile.

“So am I.” Ella smiles in return, happy at his light opening.

Then she pauses, deep in thought, as if she wanted to ask something forbidden. Lucky for her, Lucifer is clairvoyant for once and understands her hesitance.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” he asks, his voice soft and as gentle as he can make it.

Ella nods and takes a breath. “I’m not sure I can voice all I saw because of the whole painkillers in my veins right now, but you’re not a method actor, are you?”

“No,” he confirms as he prepares himself for the obvious rejection to come.

“Okay.” Ella simply replies. “That explains a lot actually,” she adds as Lucifer looks at her surprised. “Does Chloe know?”

“She does.” 

“Okay,” she repeats.

“So are you, okay?” he asks, a hint of a joke in his voice. “You’re not broken, or going to try and kill me, you know because you believe in Him?”

“Yes, no and no,” Ella replies, proud of herself to have remembered all his questions in her dazed state. “You’ve never lied to me and I know you.” she simply states. “But you and I are going to have a serious talk when I’m out of here.” she smiles. “I have a billion questions for you.”

Lucifer gives her his first real smile since she went to the swearing. “If that’s what it takes.” he jokes. He hesitates for a moment. “I’ll let you rest now. We still have work to do. I’ll let Chloe know I’m heading back to the station.”

“It’s not your fault.” Ella quickly says before he leaves, her speech slightly slurred.

“What?” he turns around.

“Me getting shot, it’s not your fault,” she explains.

“Miss Lopez…” he starts.

Ella tries to gather her thoughts. “I would have done this no matter who you are or who I thought you were. And Chloe and Dan barging in would have resulted in the same outcome,” she says, not sure if what she meant to convey made sense to him.

“I…” Lucifer starts to argue before he finally decides to indulge her. “Thank you for saying this.” he continues. “Give me a call when you’re cleared to go home, and I’ll give you the contact of an outstanding nurse, free of charge of course,” he concludes.

Ella gives him a giddy smile. “Sure.” She shows the door. “Now go and catch some killers.”

He opens the door and before he exits turns back. “Ella?”

“Yes?”

“Glad you’re not dead.”

“So am I.” she repeats as he closes the door.

_About two hours later - LAPD Precinct - Los Angeles_

As shared with Ella, Lucifer informs Chloe he heads back for the precinct to help - or just keep busy as Chloe understood - and she confirms she would join him once she’s made sure Ella is settled completely in her room and has all she needs for the next week. When the Detective arrives at the precinct, she finds Lucifer seated at her desk, deep in thought. She puts her hand on his shoulder, the gesture both natural and intimate. He turns to her and smiles. He stands up to give her her chair back and sits on the edge of her desk. Chloe searches his eyes and puts her hand on his knee.

“How are you doing?” she asks, her voice filled with tenderness and concern.

“I’ll be better once she’s out of the hospital,” Lucifer answers, voice filled with guilt.

“It’s not…”

“My fault.” he interrupts her. “But it is,” he adds. “Had I not followed in like this, things may have been very different, but Amenadiel implied you might be hurt, and I just ran in like an idiot,” he says. “Although he only delayed the moment, as I was almost done when he arrived, so…” he admits. He frowns as he hears Chloe’s chuckle. “Did I say anything amusing, Detective?” he asks, not sure why she would mock him when he decided to open up to her.

“No.” Chloe immediately replies. “But maybe next time you’ll listen to me.” she winks. When Chloe sees her joke doesn’t work as she intended but only adds confusion to his guilt, she looks for his eyes again, her fingers drawing patterns just above the knee. “Joke aside, you helped us a lot by not listening to me.” she starts. “You took out these guys and this helped us beyond what you can understand. It saved a lot of possible casualties on our side.” she sees Lucifer is slightly more relaxed now. “In regards to what happened to Ella, unfortunately, it would have happened, whether you were here or not.” Chloe finishes.

“What do you mean?” Lucifer asks.

“They made her before the ceremony and planned to kill her after the swearing anyway,” Chloe replies, emotional as she imagines that this could have ended in a completely different way. “They wanted to know what she knew before they did anything.” she locks her gaze with Lucifer’s. “So you barging in may have just been the necessary wrench in their plan which saved her life.” she finishes. She smiles as she sees Lucifer understands her point and the situation. “But that doesn’t mean that you have to stop listening to me,” she adds for good measure.

“We’ll see about that,” he replies.

“So…” Chloe tries.

“Yes?”

“Ella told me she knew I knew about your other face.” she starts. “But she didn’t have the time to say more before she fell asleep. So my amazing detective skills allowed me to guess she saw your face after she got shot.” She continues after Lucifer nods. “She seemed OK with it and handled it better than I did.”

“Blame the morphine.” Lucifer jokes.

“Yeah let’s go with that.” Chloe agrees. “Once she’s out, let me know if I can do anything to help you with _the talk_.” she laughs. “Before she dozed off, she shared some of her questions for you, and given her catholic upbringing, this is going to be a fun part for you.” she pauses, just to make sure he got her joke. “Like for example…”

“Chloe,” comes Dan’s voice from behind her

“Yeah?” Chloe replies but leaves her hand on Lucifer’s lower thigh.

“Most of the perps have talked.” he starts, staring at Chloe’s hand before he shakes his head and continues. “Their confessions align, and it confirms the Alpha planned Jet’s and Gordon’s death.” 

“Okay,” Chloe says.

“In exchange for information, they were offered a deal. They’ll still get charged as accessories to murder and will get at least five to eight years with a chance at parole if they behave.”

“What about the boss? Who is he? You do know we need his confession to close this. Without this, all is for nothing.” Chloe says.

“He hasn’t said a word since we took him in, not even for a lawyer,” Dan admits. “But according to the others, he’s a gruntled ex-employee who got fired because he tried to sell some of the techs they created. The case didn’t go to court, but both CEOs made sure he could never get a job in any other companies, no matter their area of expertise. From there, his life went down the drain and one night after a very drunken evening he had a car accident on the way back to his place and stayed in a coma for two weeks before the hospital unplugged him.” he pauses for a bit. “He woke up by some miracle just after his heart flattened.”

Chloe looks at Lucifer as she understands he knew something they didn’t. But before she can speak, Dan continues.

“We called his family after they gave us the name, and apparently after he came back from the dead, his life completely changed and he said he now had a holy mission after speaking with an angel to bring this company down.” Dan shakes his head. “This doesn’t make any sense if you ask me. I think they’re all crazy, which is why it’s never gonna hold up in court if we don’t get his confession.”

“Detective, can I talk to you in private?” Lucifer asks once Dan is finished.

“Sure,” Chloe replies and stands up to lead him to an empty conference room. 

Once the door is closed, Lucifer tells her all that happened with Amenadiel, and why all of a sudden this man seems to have inextinguishable hate for the company he used to work for, and why he sees his mission as divine. When they walk back out, Chloe walks straight to Dan and asks him.

“Give Lucifer five minutes with him, no video, no sound.”

“Chloe…” Dan starts.

“He hasn’t called for a lawyer yet, right?”

“No, but…”

“You confirmed it yourself, we need his confession, and a man who renounced his right to a lawyer and hasn’t said anything in more than five hours alone in a room is not going to say anything.” she waits for her information to sink in. “You’ve seen Lucifer work before, you know what he can do.” she simply adds.

“Chloe, I can’t…”

“It’s the only way, Dan, trust me on this.” Chloe pleads.

Dan thinks it over for a moment and takes a look at the new Lieutenant in his office before he finally agrees. “He’s in room 3. You have five minutes, not a second more.”

“I’ll be out in less than that,” Lucifer replies, his voice lower, eyes on the brink of red.

As expected, the Devil exits the interrogation room less than three minutes later, rearranging his cuffs as he walks back to Dan. He gives the smaller man a big smile.

“I believe you’ll find your suspect ready to tell you anything you wish,” he tells Dan.

Dan is tempted for a moment to ask how he did it but soon realises some things are better left unsaid.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to Lux, make sure Maze hasn’t killed any tenants yet.” Lucifer looks at Chloe before he leaves.

Chloe seems to be hesitant about what to do before she finally decides her next move. She grabs his face and kisses him. The kiss is over as briefly as it started, but before she lets Lucifer go she looks into his eyes. 

“Meet you there once I’m finished with the paperwork?”

Lucifer takes in Dan’s face and smiles. “Well, of course, I’ll be waiting then.” he takes one last look at Dan before he heads out. “Daniel,” he says before he finally goes.

Dan looks at Chloe, but for the second time in a very short time, decides to leave this part unsaid. He finally clears his throat before he leaves, unhappy with this situation, but lets it go - for now - as he sees Chloe’s beaming smile.

“See you around.” he finally says as he makes his way back to his office.

Chloe makes her way to hers as well as her phone vibrates. She takes it out to see a text from Lucifer.

“Thank you for letting me see his face. I’ll cherish it forever.”

She laughs and pockets her phone, her brain now switching to full focus on getting her paperwork done as soon as possible so she can join the Devil at his penthouse.

***THE END***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first I wanted to thank you all for following this story and all your feedback, no matter which form they took.
> 
> It has been a pleasure for me to write this one, although the last chapter was really hard and has not been betaed (my doing really ;)). Not sure if it's the fact that it's the last chapter, or the global current situation, or even the fact that I've been completely obsessed with Rizzoli&Isles lately, but I kept changing and changing everything, so... But enough rambling! 
> 
> I do hope you enjoyed this last instalment. I may not publish for a bit, at least in the Lucifer topic, but feel free to check my profile for some fics I may publish in other fandoms (like Rizzoli... Told you I was obsessed ^^).
> 
> Anyway, thank you again to all of you for your comments, feedback, likes and everything. And a huge THANK YOU to ManuHerz79 because even if I decided to publish this one still kinda rough, she did an amazing job with the rest of the chapters :).


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